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PETER KROPOTKIN 


THE REBEL, THINKER AND HUMANITARIAN 


TRIBUTES AND APPRECIATIONS - EXCERPTS - FRAGMENTS FROM THE UN- 
COLLECTED WORKS - MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS - AND ILLUSTRATIONS 


COMPILED AND EDITED BY 


JOSEPH ISHILL 





PRIVATELY PUBLISHED AND PRINTED AT THE FREE SPIRIT PRESS 
BERKELEY HEIGHTS, NEW JERSEY, U.S. A. 









































Copyright, 1923, 
; By Joseph Ishill. 
j - 
‘ ‘f 
eo nEaeaT et ' a i 








moO N T E€E N T S 


————_—_—_——— eee 
e ° e 


FOREWORD . ° ° ° By JOSEPH ISHILL 
PETER KROPOTKIN - AVE ATQUE VALE . By ROSE FLORENCE FREEMAN 


APPRECIATIONS AND TRIBUTES BY 


M. NETTLAU . e PAGE 11 VERA FIGNER fz ° PAGE 86 
HAVELOCK ELLIS . & 19 ALEXANDRA P. KROPOTKIN 87 
W. TCHERKESOFF . ~ 23 WILL DURANT - . 89 
JEAN GRAVE - A 27 Dr. FRITZ BRUPBACHER ., 91 
PAUL RECLUS Z . 35 L. GUERINEAU ° ° 97 
ERRICO MALATESTA “ 38 H. W. NEVINSON . - 101 
HIPPOLYTE HAVEL “ 41 T.J. GA. COBDEN-SANDERSON 106 
SEBASTIAN FAURE ° 44 JACQUES MESNIL . & 107 
GEORG BRANDES . . 49 ALBERT JENSEN 5 = 109 
J. Ss. K. 3 * = 51 MILLY WITKOP-ROCKER . 112 
EDWARD CARPENTER . 56 GEORGES HERZIG . ° 116 
HENRY S. SALT A P 59 F. DOMELA NIEUWENHUIS 117 
ROMAIN ROLLAND & 61 V. TCHERTKOFF . : 119 
HENRI BARBUSSE . + 62 LUIGI FABBRI . . 121 
BULGAKOFF fe H 63 BOLTON HALL é ' 123 
LUIGI BERTONI . “ 66 EMMA GOLDMAN . : 124 
N. TCHAIKOVSKY. , 69 FRANCOIS DUMARTHERAY 129 
CATHERINE BRESHOVSKAYA 72 S. YANOVSKY . 3 130 
ELISEE RECLUS 7 ‘ 75 A. HAZELAND fs : 133 


RUDOLF ROCKER . ° 78 ALEXANDER BERKMAN . 135 


C O NN ~ "EF * Qe 


[CONTINUED] 


IN REMEMBRANCE OF MANY ITALIAN AND SPANISH FRIENDS AND _ PAGE 
COMRADES - A NOTE ° . ° ° By M. NETTLAU 137 


EXCERPTS FROM 


OSCAR WILDE . . - 141 G. BROCHER .. - 148 
ELIE FAURE ‘ ; - 142 STEPNIAK p * - 149 
BERTRAND RUSSELL . - 143 VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE - 150 
FERDINAND BUISSON . - 144 VICTORINE ROUCHY-BROCHER151 
FRANK HARRIS P - 145 JEAN WINTSCH : « 152 
STEINLEN ‘ a - 146 A. MARSH : 3 - 152 
FREDERICK VAN EEDEN - 146 CHARLES MALATO . - 153 
ROBERT ERSKINE ELY PeLad MAX BAGINSKY ; - 154 
BST SS ae ee 


FRAGMENTS FROM KROPOTKIN’S UNCOLLECTEDWORKS 


FROM KROPOTKIN’S STATEMENT BEFORE THE LYONS COURT-1883 . 157 


THE FIRST WORK OF THE REVOLUTION . . ; : . 159 
THE NECESSITY OF COMMUNISM. : ; . ; . 160 
ROCKS AHEAD. p ‘ ; ; ; ; . 161 
FROM AN ADDRESS ON COMMUNIST ANARCHISM : 3 . 162 
COMMUNISM AND THE WAGE-SYSTEM 2 : ; - 8a? 
BEFORE THE STORM _. ; : E : ; : /63 
KROPOTKIN’S WORDS ON THE “ELEVENTH OF NOVEMBER” , tke 
WILLIAM MORRIS . : ; : : : : : . 167 
ELISEE RECLUS.. ; : : : : ; k . 169 


BO N T E NOE T EN OPS 


[CONTINUED] 





MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS TO 


GEORG BRANDES - PAGE 173 JEAN GRAVE ‘ . PAGE 184 
ALEXANDER ATABEKIAN 177 F DUMARTHERAY : 186 
LUIGI BERTONI . : 180 ““FREIHEIT” GROUP x 189 


“TOLSTOYAN” GROUP 189 





ILLUSTRATIONS 


PETER KROPOTKIN, Frontispiece. From a photograph by Elliot & Fry, London. 
KROPOTKIN at the age of 22. From a photograph by Bergamasco, St. Petersburg. 
EKATERINA NIKOLAEVNA KROPOTKIN, (His Mother). From a painting. 
Woodcut by MAURICE DUVALET. 

Woodcut, cover for “Le Salariat” by KOPKA. 

Drawing by M. LUCE. 

Drawing, cover for “L’Esprit de Revolte” by DELANNOY. 

Facsimile page from KROPOTKIN’S MS. “Syndicalism and Anarchism”. 

Pencil Sketch of KROPOTKIN by A. BILLIS. 

KROPOTKIN in his Library, Bromley, Kent, England. From a photograph. 
Drawing from ““LIBERTAIRE”’. 

Facsimile page of “FREEDOM”, first copy of the English Anarchist paper. 

Two pages from a facsimile letter to Jean Grave. 

KROPOTKIN at his home in Dimitroff, Russia. 

Drawing by M. LUCE. 

The Room in which KROPOTKIN died. From a photograph, 


The cuts for the cover, title page and headpiece on page 9 are by MAURICE DUVALET. 
The headpiece on the first page of the contents is by FIDUS. 


2 


“The truth is, that a system of equal property requires no restrictions or super- 
intendence whatever. There is no need of common labour, common meals or 
common magazines. These are feeble and mistaken instruments for restraining 
the conduct without making conquest of the judgement. If you cannot bring 
over the hearts of the community to your party, expect no success from brute 
regulations. If you can, regulation is unnecessary. Such a system was well 
enough adapted to the military constitution of Sparta; but it is wholly unworthy 
of men who are enlisted in no cause but that of reason and justice. Beware of 
reducing men to the state of machines. Govern them through no medium but 


that of inclination and conviction.” 
WILLIAM GODWIN 


Um 


x ¥ e : 2 x SP SP ie 
ex ay DINAN, a 
: i Vent Sy” 
A 
Pe! 


AP ALED ANS 
VE Joule 





lex aaa HE NAME OF PETER KROPOTKIN EVOKES ONE OF 
y iy ‘a noes THE GREATEST PERSONALITIES IN THE ANNALS OF 
yaa Zu THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT, OF IDEAL HU- 
4)MANITY, OF ANARCHISM. 

The heart of this rebel was one of the noblest 
that ever beat in a human breast against human 
bondage. He was a truthfal explorer in that science whose 
aim is to exalt labor and reduce misery—the science of ef- 
ficient revolution. This was unequivocally proven in all his 


works. He challenged all forms of authority which help 


spread the mist of ancient, traditional lies. 





It was his life’s dearest ideal to see the laboring masses 
liberated in the fullest sense of the word. Advocating the 
gospel of freedom, his ideas always concerned themselves 
with convincing facts. Everywhere is his work reinforced 
with concrete instances borrowed from nature and traced 
throughout the history of the sciences. 


Among the many whose illumined minds have had the 
courage to denounce a world of wrongs perpetrated by ex- 
ploiters, Kropotkin’s mind shines brightest. He courageously 
held the torch aloft, letting its searching rays fall upon the 
reactionary, the shameful, the corrupt, and exposing their 
inherent putridity. 


FOREWORD [wl 


Kropotkin had the keenest talent for observing all that is 
manifest in life. If cyinics and “practical” persons see in 
Kropotkin only the “naive dreamer”, they ought to be ad- 
vised to adjust their wisdom, and take a more profound 
view of this social and economic world which is so rapidly dis- 
integrating, and many of whose old institutions have me) 
crumbled. Kropotkin’s ideas have helped do this, and will 
in the future even more effectually shatter the shameful struc- 


ture of a society based upon hypocrisy, lies, and robbery. 


Kropotkin is one of the brightest stars in the firmament of 
famous revolutionists. In him is seen the ideal rebel exem- 
plified. His long activity in the field of human emancipation 
sufficiently proves that his life was dedicated to the masses. 


To thousands upon thousands of readers has his work be- 
come a most precious and enduring literature, and not only 
the rank and file, but to a great extent, scientists and liberal 
professors admire and follow his precepts. 


Many of his sociological predictions have become verified. 
The ideas which he advocated have, through the cupidity 
of pseudo-revolutionists, received a temporary set-back on 
the road to freedom. Nevertheless, his own eyes witnessed 
the downfall of Russian Czarism, the greatest despotic power 
an oppressed world has ever inherited. The heart of the old 
rebel must have overflowed with joy at its achievment. It 
was one of his “Utopias” come true! If what had happened 
has happened to Russia, of all nations, then Kropotkin’s 
other “Utopias” must be earnestly awaited because they are 
certain of realization. ~ 


Kropotkin’s ideas have struck deep root, and they are strik- 
ing further and farther down, establishing themselves more 
and more fundamentally; they only await the ripening time 


which is speedily and inevitably approaching, those liber- 


[ mt ] FOREWORD 


tarian ideas which have been watered with tears and sweat 
and blood since the beginning of human slavery. 


This book, as it here appears, may be criticised by some 
as an egoistic venture or as the effort of a well-financed in- 
dividual or group, because of its limited number of copies 
and its uncommercial form. The fact remains that it is the 
exclusive expression of a proletarian; neither group nor in- 
dividual has financed this work. It was accomplished solely 
through the effort and will of the writer. 


His determination to publish these collected tributes at his 
personal expense and labor, is his way of honoring the great 
personality of Kropotkin. He was inspired by Kropotkin’s 
almost unique idealism in a world drenched with the putrid 
materialism of a hypocritical civilization. The task was by 
no means a light undertaking. To see so much accumulated 
material which was gathered from various sources, and to 
have to sift it down and compress it in book-form, was ex- 
ceedingly difficult. It was necessary to limit the size and 
number of pages. Thus many of the articles are fragment- 
ary, and numerous biographical and incidental repetitions 
which are almost parallel in one way or another, had to be 
omitted. The unincluded material is voluminous and varied 
and could easily form several volumes. Kropotkin’s articles 
on revolutionary topics are of the utmost importance. It is 
the research and creative work ofa life-time, which he was 
too occupied to shape in book-form. Of these are included 
only a few fragments as a mere illustration, for the greater 
part remains still buried in the oblivion of scattered papers 


FOREWORD [Iv ] 


and periodicals. Such work is assuredly worth seeing col- 
lected and printed. 


Then, there are his personal letters to friends and comrades, 
some of great documentary value and as yet, nowhere pub- 
lished. This would add more illuminating material to his 
well-known “Memoirs of a Revolutionist”. These were 
compiled with the intention of having them inserted here; 
but as the number of pages is limited, the greater part of 
them remains unpublished. 


Far from the rumble of the Metropolis, and with sadly in- 
efficient equipment, the writer has endeavored to do what 
he considers his spiritual duty. To this quiet spot of earth 
and sky he returns exhausted with the day’s work, and 
when wheels and arms took their nightly rest, he began to 
set and print these pages. His joy in the work was inter- 
mingled with pain, for he has encountered many obstacles. 
Three times has his little hand-press broken down, utterly 
unable to cope with the overload placed upon it. In the end 
it unconditionally refused to be of further service and had 
to be consigned to the scrap-heap. Then, at great sacrifice 
it was replaced by another old, but larger press which also 
showed great disinclination to work. But at last strength 
was conquered by determination. 


The writer has sought to emulate the example of Kropotkin 
in Switzerland: During the hours when the workers were at 
rest around their hearths, Kropotkin would begin with a 
few others to set up the remaining columns of the “Révolte”, 
He sought to imitate him in his spiritual tendencies. 


It is sincerely hoped that this book may awaken in the 
hearts of the proletariat the desire to see not only a memorial 
book and one more worthy of Kropotkin, but also all his 


[v] FOREWORD 


works collected and printed in hundreds of thousands of 
copies. 


The writer wishes to express his thanks to M. Nettlau for 
his kindness and generosity in supplying an abundance of 
material, and many important suggestions for the book. He 
greatly regrets that there was not sufficient space for more 
than a small portion of the material submitted. 


He is grateful to Rose Florence Freeman who rendered many 
of the contributions into English. Thanks is also due to 
Thomas H. Keell, editor of “Freedom” who was kind enough 
to send some of the illustrative matter, and to Jean Grave 
for permitting to insert one of Kropotkin’s personal letters. 
He also is grateful to the artist Maurice Duvalet who has 
generously contributed several woodcuts, and to all the other 
contributors who have sent their tributes in memory of the 
great rebel: Peter Kropotkin. 


JOSEPH ISHILL 


BERKELEY HEIGHTS, N. J. 
AUGUST, 1923. 


S228 


“It was once also universally supposed that slavery was a natural and quite 
legitimate institution — a condition into which some were born, and to which 
they ought to submit as to a Divine ordination; nay, indeed, a great propor- 
tion of mankind hold this opinion still. A higher social development, however 
has generated in us a better faith, and we now to a considerable extent recog- 
nise the claims of humanity. But our civilisation is only partial. It may by- 
and-by be perceived, that Equity utters dictates to which we have not yet listened; 
and men may then learn, that to deprive others of their rights to the use of the 
earth, is to commit a crime inferior only in wickedness to the crime of taking 
away their lives or personal liberties. 


... We find that if pushed to its ultimate consequences, a claim to exclusive 
possession of the soil involves a land-owning despotism. We further find that 
such a claim is constantly denied by the enactments of our legislature. And we 
find lastly, that the theory of co-heirship of all men to the soil, is consistent 
with the highest civilisation; and that however difficult it may be to embody 
that theory in fact, Equity sternly commands it to be done.” 

HERBERT SPENCER 


PETER KROPOTKIN 
AVE ATQUE VALE 


The blood of Russia waters the stunted flower 
That wilts in our western sun; 

The heart of Russia beats in that holy hour 
When its petals one by one 

Shall raise their potent splendor and imbue 
The sacrificial dew. 


Comrade farewell! Your life was not indeed 
A martyrdom consoled 

Maternally by Death: You lived to bleed 
Your years out, growing old 

Captive or exile, steadfast soul unfurled 
For Russia and the world! 


Kropotkin, when your ancestors owned slaves, 
That sinister name rang out 
A challenge for their hirelings’ lifted staves, 
; The Russian whip, the Knout ... 
Kropotkin, comrade, you have cleansed long since 
Your genial name from “prince !” 


That virile, Mosaic beard, those glances keen, 
The famed clasp of your hand 
Express a life as shriven and as clean 
As cleanly ocean-sand. 
Tomorrow’s dawn lights up your kindly head, 
And who would call you dead ?... 


Russia unbars her gates; night barely over, 
She does not see—she feels; 
Her groping spirit yearns to know its lover: 
Sly footfalls dog her heels... 
- Your grave is Russia’s breast.— Peace to the two! 
Peace to Russia—and you! 


ROSE FLORENCE FREEMAN 


“No man can emancipate himself, except by emancipating mith him all the 
men around him. My liberty is the liberty of everyone, for I am not truly free, 
free not only in thought but in deed, except when my liberty and my rights 
find their confirmation, their sanction, in the liberty and the rights of all men, 


my equals.” 
M. BAKUNIN 


“CAll are awaiting the birth of a new order of things; all ask themselves, some 
with misgivings, others with hope, what the morrow mill bring forth. It will 
not come with empty hands. The century which has witnessed so many grand 
discoveries in the world of science cannot pass away without giving us still 
greater conquests... After so much hatred we long to love each other, and for 
this reason we are the enemies of private property and despisers of the law.” 
ELISEE RECLUS 





Woopcut BY MAURICE DUVALET 


PETER KROPOTKIN AT WORK 


para] ROPOTKIN’S PERSONALITY AND IDEAS WERE 
}TO SUCH AN EXTENT BEFORE COMRADES 
y4| AND THE PUBLIC AT LARGE, UNTIL 1914 AT 


=| least, that little remains to be said at this 
2M) hour of his death, when one feels dis- 
4\|inclined to compile hosts of facts and 
=4j| figures, to dissect ideas, or to record small 
J traits and anecdotes. Again, that evolu- 

tion, let loose in 1914 and since being 

spelled with an R of ever-growing proportions, is still so un- 
settled that we can hardly calculate the different forces at 
work and foresee their final course; so, with many factors 
still hidden, at least to our observation, we cannot rightly 
judge at this moment what influence Kropotkin’s life-work 
and ideas had, and maintain, on all that happened and on 
the much greater bulk of all that is preparing. Authority, 
which he fought all his life, seems to be victorious every- 
where, from Imperialism to Bolshevism; and yet, to most 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


thinking people, these are hollow victories, the last and most 
hideous manifestations of Authority, digging its own grave 
by creating at last an immense desire for real freedom and 
good fellowship, and leading inevitably up to the time when 
all the seeds scattered by Kropotkin and so many other 
Anarchists will bear fruit. When in some countries the pres- 
ent system was discredited and broke down, it was probably 
inevitable that large parties and masses, eager for power and 
materially dissatisfied and hungry, should first grasp the 
reins of power and adopt rough authoritarian measures. 
Freedom’s turn comes next, and the question as to what 
extent coming events will be more directly inspired by free- 
dom than those since 1917 have been, is the great problem 
before us. We are in the very midst of this development, 
and a definite estimate of Kropotkin’s work and its lasting 
influence must be postponed. 


It is sufficient to say that during his life of activity, from the 
sixties until 1914, he did whatever man could do, and that 
few lives are so teeming with continuous work, work for 
science and the elaboration of ideas, work for propaganda 
and the spreading of ideas, all this accompanied by hard 
work for a modest livelihocd for himselfand family. Itis in 
this respect, as a hard-working man of rare and immense 
activity, that I will consider Kropotkin just now. 


He would not have been averse to a life a little more eas ; 
but circumstances chained him to his work for between fi 
and sixty years, and, once at work, he worked away with 
great intensity. I believe that his ideas were formed by a 
slow process of gathering materials and observations with 
scientific ardour, and then basing conclusions upon them. 
Once these conclusicns were formed, be it in the ’sixties or 
thirty years later, they got hold ofhim to an incredible de- 


[ Page 12 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


gree, and seemed unalterable throughout his life. Henceforth 
he would be untiring to seek confirmation of these ideas, but 
he would far less seem to be inclined or to find time to re- 
examine them and to revise their foundation. To me, at 
least, this rigid adherence to all he had ever observed, be it 
in the early sixties, and which his memory retained wonder- 
fully, appeared somewhat strange, and leading to a degree 
cf isolation in face of the ever-progressing advance of re- 
search. I should have wished to see his ideas thrown into 
the crucible of general scientific discussion to a much greater 
extent than they were, modified by criticism, augmented b 
the efforts of many others, and then they might be before 
us now in a more permanent and general, less personal 
form. But I recognise that many reasons prevented this, and 
fixed Kropotkin, if 1 may say 80, in some respect on the 
borderline between scientist and prophet. Scientists are 
plentiful and prophets also, but men nourished by true 
science and Beneticinitig it by themselves and spreading it 
like prophets are very scarce, and Kropotkin's position was 
in some respects unique. 


The brilliant progress of natural science after Darwin’s great 
work was published in the late fifties, and the immense un. 
developed resources of Russia and Siberia, which Kropotkin 
learnt to appreciate by his travels, stimulated his interest 
for natural science, and he became an active worker upon 
this immense field, which even in autocratic Russia was re. 
latively undisturbed. But here his natural unselfishness in- 
terfered, and when he saw the downtrodden state of the 
people, to whom the natural riches and mineral wealth of 
Russia, and all the researches of Darwin, Huxley, and 
Spencer meant absolutely nothirg, he threw up the scientific 
career and cast in his lot with those who prepared the Rus- 
sian Revolution. 

[ Page 13 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


Thus, after his travels and studies of the sixties and much 
manual work, so to speak, in this domain, translations and 
the like, to earn a living, he applied the same intensity of 
work to revolutionary purposes, the organisation of secret 
propagandist travels, meetings, lectures and printing, and 
to secret lectures of his own in the guise of a working man. 
His interest was always a thorough one, he went to the 
bottom of things and did the real work, small or large, as 
required, from a revolutionary lecture to drawing up a plan 
for the reorganisation of the movement all over Russia. 


When the lives and ideas of many anarchist thinkers and 
actors will be more fully known and examined, it will be a 
charming task for a keen reasoner and psychologist to point 
out all the nuances and shades of their various conceptions 
of Anarchism — for Anarchism is happily quite the opposite 
of a cast iron theory— and then Bakunin, Kropotkin, James 
Guillaume, Cafiero, Malatesta and others will meet before the 
eyes ofthe reader. It will be particularly interesting to compare 
the Anarchism of Kropotkin and that of Elisée Rezlus, who 
closely co-operated, an were intimate friends, and yet who 
seem, to me at least, to possess great differences as well as 
remarkable affinities. To me Kropotkin’s Anarchism seems 
harder, less tolerant, more disposed to be practical; that of 
Reclus seems to be wider, wonderfully tolerant, uncom- 
promising as well, based on a more humanitarian basis. 
There is room for both and more, and if Kropotkin’s Anar- 
chism is more of his time and parts of it may vanish with 
himself, that of Reclus seems more lasting to me; the time 
to recognise it fully has not yet arrived, but is sure to come. 


My personal recollection of him dates from the Commune 
meeting held in London in March 1888 and a series of 
lectures given by Kropotkin and other members of the Free- 

[ Page 14 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


dom group in that year, some of them at the Socialist League 
offices in Farringdon Road. But at that time no farther co- 
operation ensued between the League where revolutionary 
socialism predominated and the Group which was strictly 
anarchist communist and it was not until the Commonweal 
Group, the final outcome of the Socialist League, had been 
broken up by persecutions in 1894, and “Freedom” also 
was voluntarily interrupted for some months in 1894-95, 
that the rest of the Commonweal Group and the Freedom 
Group amalgamated and “Freedom” was resuscitated in 
May, 1895, to be published without a break from that time 
until to-day. 


Somehow none of these events, the stirring times of the 
early nineties, brought Kropotkin into a contact with the 
English movement so close as that which existed—as I heard 
from old comrades — between himselfand the movement in 
the Jura townships and at Geneva. The literary work for 
his living (auxiliary geographical work, etc.), and his health 
impaired by Russian and French prison life, also the many 
calls on his literary help, correspondence, etc., required a 
certain retirement, besides periods of strained library work; 
and he always dwelt at a considerable distance from the 
centre, at Harrow, Acton, Bromley (Kent), Muswell Hill, 
and finally, when his health demanded it, at Brighton, and 
only passed an odd week or so in London now and then 
for library researches. As he gave all his time to work, study, 
correspondence, and visitors, he could not possibly have 
done more; and if his contact with the London movement 
had been more frequent other paris of his work which 
appeal toa larger public must have been curtailed. 


He had so very many things in hand which led to studies, 
which, like all serious studies, never come to anend. Thus 
[ Page 15 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


he watched the whole range of organic life for proofs of 
mutual aid as against the struggle for life, and I saw him 
seldom so delighted as some afternoon in the British Muse- 
um when, at last; he had just discovered an account of 
early social tigers which a scientist had declared nct to exist, 
meaning thereby to strike a nasty blow against mutual aid. 
Kropotkin by accident found an account that tigers also 
had lived in herds until the persecutions of men reduced 
their numbers and forced them to isolate themselves in re- 
mote parts of the jungle. To this observation of the detai's 
of animal and social life he added by and by the burden of 
ethical research, where so much literature antagonistic to 
his ideas still required to be examined preliminarily. 


Then his American journey produced the invitation of the 
“Atlantic Monthly” to write his “Memoirs,” a task the first 
part of which revived all his early Russian memories and, 
in general, led him back to ever so many recollections of 
which he did not speak in the “Memoirs.” Knowing my 
historical and bibliographical interest — which he always 
very kindly seconded — he told me in those years many 
additions to the “Memoirs” which I used for my additional 
notes on Bakunin and the life of Malatesta or which, if 
they concern the last years of the International and Anar- 
chism of the eighties, repose still in my notes. This period 
of personal retrospection was interrupted by the greater in- 
terest which Russia claimed from him when at last in the 
years preceding 1905 the movement became more hopeful 
and some said: now or never! and the change of 1905 was 
brought about indeed. In those years Kropotkin visited 
America another time and gave those lectures which the 
book “Russian Literature” (1905) reproduces. 


[ Page 16 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


During the last few years before 1914 he felt very much the 
necessity of always having to work to keep his home going, 
and he would have dearly enjoyed some real rest, which for 
him would have meant the reading and even the collecting 
of books (for he was a book lover, too, and enjoyed getting 
hold of scarce revolutionary editions,) artistic pleasures, 
and listening to interesting news, with some peeps behind 
the curtains of politics among them which he dearly loved. 
But such leisure he was never to enjoy; some cares, im- 
paired working power and very precarious health never gave 
him a longer respite; it was painful to see how often work, 
overwork, downbreak and enforced rest succeeded each other 
almost automatically. Yet he was cheerful and gay and loved 
to joke and to laugh, but he was also the next moment dread. 
fully hard and earnest, and, above all, he was unalterable 
in his adherence to the different sorts of ideas which he 
had formulated. But why insist upon some weaknesses 
which, after all, no doubt had their advantages as well, and 
contributed to the composition of the unique personality 
he was. 


I last saw him before he left for Bordighera at the end of 
1913. I was not surprised at his attitude on the war, since 
his opinions on this subject were old and deep rooted. I 
can thus feel and understand his life from 1914 to Sly; 
also his immense delight at the Russian Revolution of 
March, 1917, and the hope with which he returned to Rus- 
sia in Kerensky’s time. Some months later, however, his life 
must have become a tragedy, and must have been this to 
the very end. Tolstoy spoke up to the Tsar in 1908: “I can 
no longer be silent; I must speak!” — Kropotkin’s voice to 
[ Page 17 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


Lenin was not heard, or only in a few letters printed abroad; 
but he may have thought that all his friends would interpret 
his silence, like that of Spiess when he met his death at 
Chicago in 1887: “There will come a time when our silence 
will be more powerful than the voices you are strangling 

to-day”— the silence of Kropotkin covers a tragedy before — 
which to us his weaker sides disappear, and his cheerful, 
indetatigable work for freedom, science, and humanity alone 


remains. 
M. NETTLAU 


De 


4 eee AS WE ARE BY ;HEREDITARY PREJUDICES AND ; 
OUR UNSOUND EDUCATION AND TRAINING TO REPRESENT 
OURSELVES THE BENEFICIAL HAND OF GOVERNMENT, LEGIS- 

LATION AND MAGISTRACY EVERYWHERE, WE HAVE COME TO 
BELIEVE THAT MAN WOULD TEAR HIS FELLOW-MAN TO PIECES 
LIKE A WILD BEAST THE DAY THE POLICE TOOK HIS EYE OFF 
HIM; THAT ABSOLUTE CHAOS WOULD COME ABOUT IF AUTHOR- 
ITY WERE OVERTHROWN DURING A REVOLUTION. AND WITH 
OUR EYES SHUT WE PASS BY THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS 
OF HUMAN GROUPINGS WHICH FORM THEMSELVES FREELY, 
WITHOUT ANY INTERVENTION OF THE LAW, AND ATTAIN RE- 
SULTS INFINITELY SUPERIOR TO THOSE ACHIEVED UNDER GOV- 


ERNMENTAL TUTELAGE. ...” 
“THE CONQUEST OF BREAD” 


[ Page 18 ] 








PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


KROPOTKIN 


& SONp 







ROM time to time there appear upon the earth 
Face <3 | men who stand aside from the streams of com- 
We FEN mon tradition and, in their thought or in their 
ey Bs yhU| lives, or in both, refuse to recognise the authority 
aerate) of external authority or of external rule, believing 
that human life can only be harmoniously and happily lived 
when its order is autonomous and comes from within. Of 
such men in recent years the most conspicuous and the most 


distinguished, after Tolstoy, was probably Peter Kropotkin. 











¢ 










He was himself far too modest to magnify his own place in 
this great succession, but he loved to recall the names of 
these splendid figures in the past who had thus rejected the 
authority of the herd. He went far back for the first — about 
as far back as he well could go—and invoked the name of 
Lao-tze the first and greatest mystic. Then he came down to 
Aristippus and to the Cynics, to Zeno and those of the 
Stoics who advocated the free community and were in some 
respects remarkably near the libertarian thinkers of recent 
days. Later are to be noted some of the Hussites and some 
of the early Anabaptists. Kropotkin fails to mention Leo- 
nardo da Vinci who, by his complete rejection of all author- 
ity but that of Nature and his unqualified contempt for the 
herd, was on the intellectual side the supreme representative 
of the type. But he could not fail to recognize Rabelais who 
remains even by his conception of the Abbey of Thelema 
alone, the most brilliant and far-reaching among early expo- 
nents of this philosophy. He mentions — no doubt to the sur- 
prise of some—the name of Fenelon, and he could not fail 
to admit the free and flaming genius of Diderot. Then 
there was Godwin, who first formulated this philosophy in 
a coherent modern political and economic shape, and later 
[ Page 19] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


the gracious and charming figure of Guyau whom Kropotkin 
always regarded as the founder of anew morality. Kropotkin 
- himself takes his high place in this noble band not so much 
by power or brilliance in any one direction, as by a fine 
combination of qualities, for he was at once an aristocrat 
and a martyr, a philosophic thinker and a revolutionist, 
eminent not only by his high accomplishments in science 
but by his willingness to share the lot of the lowliest, and 
throughout all conspicuous by the nobility of his personal 
character. Through this possession of a beautifully many- 
sided nature he became not indeed one of the greatest of 
the long line of such men but one of the most typical. 


The men of this type are often called Anarchists and it was 
so that Kropotkin called himself. Invented by Proudhon in 
1840 and since so often employed, it is yet not a happy 
name. It suggests a disorganised rebellion against all govern- 
ment, and it is not surprising that to the vulgar mind “anar- 
chist” often means “criminal”, and still less surprising that 
the common criminal is often pleased to dub himself “anar- 
chist”. But the people called Anarchists, outside criminal 
circles, are not in favour of disorganisation nor of the re- — 
jection of government. What they seek to maintain is or- 
ganisation from within rather than from without, and self- 
government rather than government by others. “Do what 
you will”, was the inscription Rabelais set up over the Abbey 
of Thelema, but he proceeded at once to point out that 
people who are well born and well bred will to do that only 
which it is good to do. 


In the wide sense Anarchists represent a stream of opinion 
which has never failed to exist. There have always been 
Statists, on the one hand, Kropotkin was accustomed to 
assert, and Anarchists on the other. The Statists rely on 

[ Page 20 ] 








PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


established and more or less rigid institutions maintained 
by a strong minority dominating the majority; Anarchists 
reject the State together with Capitalism, oppression, and 
war, to which it inevitably leads. But there are, as we know, 
two groups of Anarchists, the Individualist Anarchists and 
the Communist Anarchists who believe in the concerted 
organisation of Society, initiated by revolution. The supreme 
figures in history who are claimed as Anarchists may prob- 
ably all be said to belong to the Individualist group. Obvi- 
ously, however, along that line there is little chance of a 
speedy remoulding of society, therefore sanguine and opti- 
mistic spirits tend to be drawn towards Communist Anar- 
chism which promises a speedier cure for the world’s ills. 
It was in this direction that Kropotkin was drawn. He 
expected a revolution to occur about the end of the nine- 
teenth century, to begin in one of the great countries of 
Europe and to overspread the world. The society thus formed 
would, he said, be an organised interwoven network. He 
overlooked the fact that that is just what the much-denounced 
State is, and that after kicking the State out of the front 
door he would be letting it in at the back door. For the mob 
remains the mob, whether or not it labels itself “State” and 
an oppressed majority has ever proved even more danger- 
ous than even an oppressing minority. Kropotkin’s psycho- 
logy was a little too simple. He asserted that some human 
beings are “venomous beasts” and must be destroyed by 
other human beings whom he regarded as pure-souled altru- 
ists. But he scarcely seems to have realised that the major- 
ity of human beings are neither the one nor the other, but 
have in them both a streak of the “venomous beast” and 
another of the pure-souled altruist. The great revolution that 
Kropotkin foresaw duly arrived, although a few years later 
than he expected. It is a revolution of which the exact char- 


[ Page 21 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


acter and the far reverberating influences, which can scarcely 
fail to be immense, we may not yet attempt to estimate. 
Kropotkin hastened to Russia to take part in it, and there 
in the heart of Russia, in the midst of the Revolution he had 
spent his life in preparing, but in which he now felt an alien 
and which showed itself completely indifferent to him, he 
at length died. 


We must riot therefore count Kropotkin a failure. On the 
contrary he was an immense success. It is true that the 
pure-hearted enthusiasts of this noble type are apt to over- 
estimate the power of their faith to remove mountains; they 
do not always recognise, as Diderot, one of the greatest of 
them, had the genius to see and to acknowledge, that 
their creed is “diablement idéal”. It matters little. They 
have let the light of their inspiration and their courage so 
shine before men that it can never be extinguished, but re- 
mains an ever burning flame, to keep alive in each one of 
us some spark of that higher life by which Mankind alone 


truly lives. 
y 
HAVELOCK ELLIS 


oh 


“WE REPRESENT OURSELVES A FORWARD MOVEMENT OF SOCI- 
ETY AS AN APPROACH TO THE ABOLITION OF ALL THE AUTHOR- 
ITY OF GOVERNMENT, AS A DEVELOPMENT OF FREE AGREEMENT 
FOR ALL THAT FORMERLY WAS A FUNCTION OF CHURCH AND 
STATE, AND AS A DEVELOFMENT OF FREE INITIATIVE IN 
EVERY INDIVIDUAL AND EVERY GROUP. AND THESE ARE THE 
TENDENCIES WHICH DETERMINE THE TACTICS OF THE ANAR- 
CHISTS IN THE LIFE OF BOTH THE INDIVIDUAL AND OUR CIR- 
CLES.” MODERN SCIENCE AND ANARCHISM 

[ Page 22 ] 


ite Bil 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


FRIEND AND COMRADE 


aN my long life as Socialist and revolutionist, I 


“(= have had the chance to meet many gifted and 


GER exceptional people, excelling in knowledge or 


ise rey _ talent, and distinguished by greatness of char- 
Ee eeaenaiacter. I knew even heroic men and women, as 
well as people with the stamp of genius... But Kropotkin 
stands as a most conspicuous, strongly defined character 
even in that gallery of noble fighters for humanitarian ideals 


and intellectual liberation. 




















Kropotkin possesses in delightful harmony the qualities of 
a true inductive scientist and evolutionary philosopher with 
the greatness of a Socialist thinker and fighter, inspired by 
the highest ideals of social justice. At the same time by his 
temperament he is undoubtedly one of the most ardent and 
fearless propagandists of the social revolution and of the 
complete emancipation of working humanity through its own 
initiative and efforts. And all these qualities are united in 
Kropotkin so closely and intimately that one cannot, separ- 
ate Kropotkin, the scientist, from Kropotkin, the Socialist 
and revolutionist. 


As scientist— geographer and geologist— Kropotkin is famed 
for his theory of the formation of mountain chains and high 
plateaux, a theory now proved and accepted by science, 
and, in recognition of which the mountains in East Siberia 
explored by him have been named Kropotkin mountains. 


As naturalist and inductive thinker on evolution, Kropotkin 
has earned undying glory and admiration by his “Mutual 
Aid,” a work showing his vast knowledge as a naturalist 
and sociologist. 


[ Page 23 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


One of the most striking works of Kropotkin, I may say 
even classical by its form, deep knowledge, brilliant argu- 
mentation and noble purpose, is his “Fields, Factories and 
Workshops.” Here he shows to toiling humanity with facts 
and figures the abundance of produce obtainable, the com- 
forts and pleasures of life possible if physical and intellectu- 
al work are combined, if agriculture and industry are to go 
hand in hand. I think that for the last quarter of a century 
no book has appeared so invigorating, so encouraging 
and convincing to those who work for a happier society. 
No wonder that a London democratic weekly advised its 
readers to buy his book by all means, even if they had to 
pawn their last shirt to raise the shilling. 


... 1 often ask myself if there exists another man equal to 
Kropotkin in quickness, intensity, punctuality and variety 
of work? It is simply amazing what he is capable of doing 
in a single day. He reads incredibly much, in English, French, 
German and Russian; with minute interest he follows polit- 
ical and social events, science and literature, and especially 
the Anarchist movement in the whole world. His study, with 
its booklined walls, has piles of papers, new books, etc.,on 
the floor, tables and chairs. And all this material, if not 
read, is at least looked through, annotated, often parts are 
cut out, classified and put away in boxes and portfolios 


made by himself. Kropotkin used to occupy himself for re-— 


creation with carpentry and bookbinding, ... and all his work 
is done with beautifal neatness and correctness. 


To give an idea of the variety of his work, I shall descrike 
my last visit to Kropotkin. I came with a French scientist, 
also a great workerand a sincere admirer of Kropotkin. We 
found him in his study, hard at work, giving the last touches 
to a new edition of his “Fields, Factories and Workshops.” 

[ Page 24 ] 


ee 


ae a ee 


; 
: 
| 
| 








PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


One side of his table was covered with the French proofs 
of “La Science moderne et L’Anarchie.” There were also 
the appendix and glossary in English for the coming “Free- 
dom” edition of the same book. On a small table a half- 
finished article on Syndicalism was lying, and a pile of let- 
ters, some of them twelve pages long, exchanged with an 
old friend and comrade of the Federation Jurassienne, and 
dealing with the origin of Syndicalism, awaited an answer. 
Newspapers, books everywhere, volumes and separate 
articles on Bakunin were about, as Kropotkin is at present 
editing a complete Russian edition of Bakunin’s works. In 
the midst of all these things, vigorous, alive, active as a 
young man, smiling heartily, Kropotkin himself... 


At the end of the day, when the household has gone to 
rest, Kropotkin, with his usual consideration for those who 
have werked, moves about the house like a mouse, tiptoe- 
ing so as not to disturb sleep even if only the servant 
has gone to bed. Often he has whispered to me to be care- 
ful so as not to awaken her. Lighting his candle, he retires 
to his own room, sometimes till midnight reading new pub- 


lications for which he could not find time during the day. 


It is not astonishing that all who come in contact with him 
love and adore him. 


But there is another side to his character. Kropotkin, the 
political and social thinker, the revolutionist, the Anarchist- 
Communist, with his fiery temperament of a fighter, with his 
inflexible principles, his insight in political and social problems, 
is yet more admirable; he sees further, he understands better, 
he formulates clearer than any of our contemporaries. Few 
people feel so deeply and acutely the suffering and injustice 
of others, and he cannot rest until he has done all in his 
power to protect and help. From 1881, when he was expelled 
[ Page 25 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


from Switzerland for having organized a meeting protesting 
against the execution of Sophia Perovskaya and her com- 
rades, up till recently when he feverishly wrote his “Terror 
in Russia,” that crushing act of accusation against the Tsar’s 
wholesale murder and torture, he has always been the in- 
defatigable defender ofall the victims of social and political 


injustice. 


Such is, in; a few lines, Kropotkin, the Anarchist, the scien- 
tist, and, above all, the man, beloved by his comrades and 


friends respected and admired by honest people the world 


over. 
W. TCHERKESOFF 


re 


“HOW MUCH BETTER THE HISTORIAN AND THE SOCIOLOGIST 
WOULD UNDERSTAND HUMANITY IF THEY KNEW IT, NOT IN 
BOOKS ONLY, NOT IN A FEW OF ITS REPRESENTATIVES, BUT AS 
A WHOLE, IN ITS DAILY LIFE, DAILY WORK, AND DAILY AFFAIRS! 
HOW MUCH MORE MEDICINE WOULD TRUST TO HYGIENE, AND 
HOW MUCH LESS TO PRE SCRIPTIONS, IF THE YOUNG DOCTORS 
WERE THE NURSES OF THE SICK AND THE NURSES RECEIVED 
THE EDUCATION OF THE DOCTORS OF OUR TIME! AND HOW 
MUCH THE POET WOULD GAIN IN HIS FEELING OF THE BEAU- 
TIES OF NATURE, HOW MUCH BETTER WOULD HE KNOW THE 
HUMAN HEART, IF HE MET THE RISING SUN AMIDST THE TIL- 
LERS OF THE SOIL, HIMSELF A TILLER; IF HE FOUGHT AGAINST 
THE STORM WITH THE SAILORS ON BOARD SHIP; IF HE KNEW 
THE POETRY OF LABOR AND REST, SORROW AND JOY, STRUGGLE 
AND CONQUEST! GREIFT NUR HINEIN IN’S UOLLE MENSCHENLEBEN! 
GOETHE SAID; EIN JEDER LEBT’S — NICHT VIELEN IST’S BEKANNT. 
BUT HOW FEW POETS FOLLOW HIS ADVICE!” 
FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS 
[ Page 26 ] 








ee ee me re ee 

































PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


-PERSONAL REMINISCENCES 


=e must have been in 1880 or 1881 that I met 
e242) Kropotkin for the first time. Arriving in Paris, 


GEN fess he came to pay me a visit accompanied by 
i) i) Madame Kropotkin. 


Oty) a ee: 
eee 






oe) 
4, 
i 


We had already maintained epistolatory rela- 
tions. I had sent him some articles for “Le Révolté”, after 
which ensued a fortnightly correspondence on the social 
movement. 


Those days are long since passed, alas! and the details of 
that interview are a bit hazy in my memory. What survives 
is the simplicity, the kindness, the enthusiasm of the man. 


I have no doubt that I also must have pleased him, for 
it was at his suggestion that, some time afterward, when 
comrade Herzig, who up to then had occupied himself 
with “Le Révolte”, being unable to continue longer because 
of the serious necessity of devoting himself to relieve the 
wants of his family, Reclus asked me to go to Geneva in 
order to replace him. 


Kropotkin has remained young all his years. He has kept 
the ardor of a youth of twenty throughout his life. Despite 
sufferings, despite the privations he had to undergo in the 
course of his agitated existence, he remained young in soul 


and body. 


Notwithstanding the extensiveness of his knowledge he paid 
attention to his interlocutors and knew how to surrender to 
an argument when it struck him as sound. How many, 
even among the anarchists who had neither his knowledge 
nor erudition would have profited by the example of his life. 


I have never heard him boast nor speak of himself or his 
birth. 


[ Page 27 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


“On the part of an anarchist”, ‘it will be said, “it is very 
natural and contains nothing that should appear meritori- 
ous to us”. Quite so. But how many an anarchist in his 
place would have been the anarchist that he was ? 


Detained in France. . . Kropotkin was sentenced to five 
years imprisonment for “affiliation with the International”. 


Affiliated with the International he evidently had been, but; 
of all those who were sentenced with him, he was indeed 
the only one I know of who had been affiliated with it. And 
as, in fact, the International had ceased to exist for several 
years, the crime of affiliation no longer existed. 


At my house they seized a letter of Kropotkin’s, in which 
he discoursed on questions pertaining to “Le Revolte”, com- 
plaining especially of: my bad punctuation. This letter was 
read at the trial. It was rather a meager proof: in support of 
the accusation and a better was not produced. But at a po- 
litical trial it is unnecessary to be too particular about the 
selection of proofs. : 


Kropotkin and the others were transferred to Clairvaux. 
There, beside his scientific and literary work, Kropotkin 
found the means of} organising different courses in order to 
perfect the education of his comrades. In his correspond- 
ence he was particularly interested in the “Child”? — the 


“child” being “Le Revolte’’. 


It was there that he found time to collect in book-form his 
best articles from “Le Révolté”. Reclus found the title for it: 
“Paroles d’un Revolte’’. 


Reclus, moreover, had a talent for finding titles. It was he 
who baptised “La Conquete du Pain”. At the time of the 
publication of the French edition of ‘Memoirs ofa Revolu- 

: [ Page 28 } 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


tionist”’, he suggested “\Autour d’une Vie”. And for “Mutual 
Aid” he found the word “Entr’Aide” for the French edition. 


I have a vague idea that it was he who suggested to me the 
title of “La Société Mourante et Anarchie”. 


Eleven years later, when, thanks to this last book — which 
was my first —I was called to reside at Clairvaux at the 
government’s expense, I found the memory of Kropotkin 
among the prison-officials, director, inspector and even 
guards as fresh as if he had been there only the day before, 


so impressed were they by his personality. 


But our relations were rather epistolatory. We only saw 
each other on his rare visits to Paris or on my as rare visits 


to England. 


When amnesty, at the advent of Felix Faure, opened the 
gates of Clairvaux for me, my first care was to resume re- 
lations with those comrades who were not dispersed. 


Reclus had written asking me what I intended to do. To 
continue our propaganda and set the journal on its feet 
again, of course. And procuring a round-trip ticket to Brus- 
sels where Reclus lived, I paid him a visit. 


His first words were: “Have you seen Kropotkin?” “No.” 
Then you must go and see Kropotkin. Wecan do nothing 
without Kropotkin.’ i 


Taking my valise again the next morning, I embarked at 
Ostend for Douvres where I took the train to London. It is 
needless to speak of the welcome accorded me by Kropotkin. 
He was with us in all we would undertake. We could count 
on his co-operation. 


As I was short of money so that I could not risk losing 
the benefit of my return-ticket which was good for only 
[ Page 29 J 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


five days, I got on the train again the next day, stopping at 
Ostend and saw Reclus once more on my way to Brussels 
where I again took the train to Paris. 


Having left Clairvaux without a sou, I had found, indeed, 
at the house of friends who during my absence had saved 
what they could of my correspondence which had escaped 
postal confiscation, a check for 300 francs sent by friends 
in Argentina, which served me — in part at least — for the 
printing of some circulars calling a meeting of comrades. 


Apart from comrade Charles-Albert who found the means 
oO collecting a couple of hundred francs at Lyons, the results 
were rather poor. The subscriptions certainly did not equal 
the sum sent in by Charles-Albert. 


That did not prevent us from renewing a lease for twen 
years. This was an improvement on “Le Revolté” which had 
‘started out with 27 francs. It was Reclus who found the 
name “Les Temps Nouveaux”, a title which he had given 
formerly to one of Kropotkin’s brochures. 


It is true, that, as a set-off, I received warm encouragements. 


Pity they cannot be cashed! 


I asked the collaboration of most of the literary men who 
had so ardently approved us. Well! I could count on them 
all: Mirbeau, Descaves, Bernard Lazare and so many 
others promised their contributions. But if promises are 
no scarcer than encouragements, it seems this will prove 
no precedent. Although I made it my duty at the beginning 
of the appearance of “Les Temps Nouveaux” to remind 
them that they had promised articles, I never received any- 
thing from them. 


It was at this period that I made the acquaintance of her 
who was to become my wife. 
[ Page 30 } 


ee et 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


She and her sisters had first met Kropotkin at the Stepniaks. 
He had read her first book that had just been published. 
Greatly interested, he found therein a marked tendency 
toward our ideas. 


Since she was going to Paris she was bound to become ac- 
quainted with the anarchist movement there, and he gave 
her a letter for me, inducing her to pay me a visit. ..... 


Again it is my wife who reminds me how he loved to 
divert himself with music. He was enthusiastic about Rus- 
sian music from which he often pla ed us airs—on the oc- 
casions of our rare visits. Naturally, “Le Drapeau Rouge” 
and “Le Chant des Travailleurs” were included. 


The winter prior to the war we visited him at Bordighera, 
the Swiss government not having desired to allow him to 
return to Locarno where he passed the preceding winter and 
where he had been welcomed even by the Municipality—if’ 


he did not humble himself to ask permission. 


Kropotkin had preferred to renounce a country-sojourn from 
which he derived great benefit rather than submit. 


In short, he was at Bordighera and we were enjoying some 
bits of music, when we saw two maids from the neighboring 
villa come up to listen, finding enough courage’ to approach 
the window for the purpose of hearing better. 


Kropotkin came out to them, installed them comfortably in 
the salon and played them the best pieces of his repertoire. 
It was done simply, with an unaffected good-nature, and 
without ostentation. He was happy to be able to yield a 
little pleasure to others. How like Kropotkin! 46.6 s > 


But it was not until 1916 that we were able to spend a few 
weeks with Kropotkin at Brighton when he was beginning 
to recover from an operation he had had to undergo. 

[ Page 31 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


As was appropriate, our conversation turned upon the cir- 
cumstances and impotence of the anarchists. If he were 
younger, as he always declared, Kropotkin would have 
been among the combatants and it is Kecaceie he was un- 
able to participate in the struggle that he for a long time re- 
fused to adopt the suggestion I made him of: publishing a 
declaration of our opinions on the drama which was un- 
folding. 

And, indeed, there is always something unpleasant about 
one who remains tranquil by his fire-side and has the ap- 
pearance of | assuming disputatious airs. 


I advisedly say “has the appearance of. assuming dispu- 
tatious airs” for, in sum, it was not a question of urging 
any one whatsoever either to enroll or to glorify the war or 
to desire it or to precipitate it since war was already raging. 


Up till then we had given our opinion on all ques- 
tions concerning human evolution — particularly when it 
was not asked of us -— and this was not the time to keep 
silent. There was no question... but that of honestly stating 
our sentiments on what was occurring. If too old to support 
the fatigues of an army in campaign, the denouement of 
the drama did not interest us the less for all that and did 
not deprive us of the right to say what we thought of it. It 
certainly was expected of some, at least, who thought as 


we did. 
It ended at last by my opinion being adopted. Asa result of 


our collaboration was issued the “Declaration” signed 
by 17 (?) of our friends and which caused us to be accused 
of treason by those of the anarchists who, confined to a 
deplorable sectarianism, unconsciously rendered themselves 
the allies to the most frightfal militarism by preaching non- 
resistance to its aggression. 

[ Page 32 ] 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


When the revolution of 1917 permitted him to return to 
Russia— after 40 years of exile—it was with a heart joyous 


and full of hope that Kropotkin made ready to depart. 


It most assuredly was not yet the realisation of his dreams, 
but it was the end of despotism, of the arbitrary; it was an 
wee road toward possible realisations, a first step toward 
eedom, the creation of an atmosphere in which it was 


possible to breathe freely. 
I proposed to go and bid him farewell at Brighton but he 


wrote me that it would be impossible for us to find the time 
to speak practically in the midst of the packing up of his 
furniture and library. 


He had spoken to me of an understanding among some 
chosen comrades in the way of being prepared to resist a 
deviation of the movement, like that of Individualism, for 
example. It was a question of discussing the idea definit- 
ively and settling it. He made an appointment with me at 
London where he went to await his departure. 


Unfortunately the sailing of the ship which was to convey 
him was advanced before the date originally fixed and 
Kropotkin only had time to send me, through the interme- 
diary of comrade Turner, the secretary of the Shop Employ- 
ees’ Union, his farewell letter to the Occidental workers and 
fifty francs to help defray the expense of publication. It 
served as subject for one of the Bulletins published by 
Guerin to whom [ sent it together with the fifty francs. 


Poor Kropotkin! What has his life been yonder after the seizure 
of power by the Bolsheviks! What cruel lacerations he must 
have felt to see his dreams of liberty, of well-being for all, 
atrociously scattered to the four winds, brutally trampled 
under foot in the very name of the social ideas which had 
been the motive-force of his whole life. JEAN GRAVE 
[ Page 33 ] 


N PROPORTION ONLY AS ALL THE OTHERS ROUND HIM BE- 


COME FREE” 
ae) 


“CONSCIOUSLY OR UNCONSCIOUSLY, THE IDEAL, THE CON- 
CEPTION OF SOMETHING BETTER, ALWAYS GROWS IN THE MIND 
OF WHOEVER CRITICISES EXISTING INSTITUTIONS.” 

MODERN SCIENCE AND ANARCHISM 


[is INDIVIDUAL UNDERSTANDS THAT HE WILL BE REALLY FREE 
I 


mMMHMMHMMMMMM NSN MSM BW SY BH BM DB 


2» ELIEF in an ice-cap reaching Middle Europe was at that time rank heresy; but before 
my eyes a grand picture was rising, and I wanted to draw it, with the thousands of de- 
tails I saw in it; to use it as a key to the present distribution of floras and faunas; to 
open new horizons for geology and physical geography. 


But what right had I to these highest joys, when all around me was nothing but misery 
and struggle for a mouldy bit of bread; when whatsoever I should spend to enable me 
to live in that world of higher emotions must needs be taken from the very mouths of 
those who grew the wheat and had not bread enough for their children? From some- 
body’s mouth it must be taken, because the aggregate production of mankind remains 
still so low. 


Knowledge is an immense power. Man must know. But we already know much! What 
if that knowledge — and only that — should become the possession of all? Would not 
science itself progress in leaps, and cause mankind to make strides in production, inven- 
tion, and social creation, of which we are hardly in a condition now to measure the 
speed ? 
The masses want to know: they are willing to learn; they CAN learn. There, on the 
crest of that immense moraine which runs between the lakes, as if giants had heaped it 
up in a hurry to connect the two shores, there stands a Finnish peasant plunged in 
contemplation of the beautiful lakes, studded with islands, which lie before him. Not 
one of these peasants, poor and downtrodden though he may be, will pass this spot 
without stopping to admire the scene. Or there, on the shore of a lake, stands another 
peasant, and sings something so beautiful that the best musician would envy him his 
melody, for its feeling and its meditative power. Both deeply feel, both meditate, both 
think; they are ready to widen their knowledge, -- only give it to them, only give them 
the means of getting leisure. 
This is the direction in which, and these are the kind of people for whom, I must work. 
All those sonorous phrases about making mankind progress, while at the same time the 
progress-makers stand aloof from those whom they pretend to push onwards, are mere 
sophisms made up by minds anxious to shake off a fretting contradiction. . . .” 
MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST 
e 


[ Page 34 ] 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


THE TORCH-BEARER 


==) WISH only to evoke the comrade of forty years, 
- —Kropotkin— the friend of the warm hand- 

< clasp and the hearty embrace, the upright and 
4 intelligent man of playful humor, of impec- 


| cable family-life. 





Kropotkin was a worker intent upon his work. When he un- 
dertook an article on the subject of “Recent Science” for the 
English magazine “The Nineteenth Century” which occupied 
him for a score of years, he went to spend a week or two at 
London in the neighborhood of the British Museum and 
examined documents; then, home again, he wrote out the 
article directly into English, but re-wrote it four, five and six 
times in succession, until the content and form satisfied 
him. An article of twenty pages frequently kept him busy for 
more than two months without pause and yielded him 750 
francs. When he did sociological work, it was in French 
that he thought and wrote; then he usually sent the proofs 
to Elisee Reclus, or rather to his sister, Mme. Dumesnil, 
for the last revision. Ofhis other works, his personal re- 
collections in particular were conceived in his mind in the 
Russian language. 


Sunday afternoons were devoted to his friends. The personal 
worth of Kropotkin and the magnetism he exerted rendered 
him dear to a great meny people who certeinly were not 
anarchists, such as that extracrdinary Belgian magistrate 
Ernest Nys who died a few months ago. Diversity of opin- 
ions lent a great interest to the conversation. And what 
ardor Pierre put into it! On one of my last visits to his 
[ Page 35 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


home in Brighton, I brought with me ten young Belgians 
from 15 to 16 years of | age. He welcomed them in quite a ; 


paternal manner, made them take tea and spoke to each _ Ri 
one of them, setting them entirely at ease and interesting = 


them....... ; 


I became acquainted with Kropotkin in Switzerland at 
Cheziere, before 1880, I think. He was then the geograph- 


ical adviser of Elisee Reclus for his volume on Siberia. After _ 


the condemnation of Lyons, Sophie went to live with us at — 
Paris until the time when she received permission to see 
her husband every day. Then she came to live at Clairvaux 
and once I was permitted to embrace Pierre in prison. Later 
on, on the outskirts of London, at Acton, Highgate and 
at Bromely, I saw him often. Finally, for the last time, at — 
Brighton, in November, 1914. Shall I speak of his private 
life, of his tenderness for Sophie and Sasha their daughter, 
of the attentions which were lavished upon him, of his all- 
too-frequent pulmonary attacks? No, it was altogether sim- 
ple and would lose much in the telling. Let us be content — 
with recalling the welcome he accorded his friends and in 
which Sophie so warmly seconded him. Let us be content 
with seeing him strolling along the cliff at Brighton while 
convalescent, figure upright, shoulders squared, cane in hand, 
thinking of the article he was about to begin, of the Russia 
of his childhood, of a new social order. . . . ; 


Kropotkin’s main characteristic was, in my opinion, his 
kindness. It overflowed from his eyes, enveloped one, 
warmed one instantly. Others will say that it was intelli- 
gence articularly which shone through his spectacles. Per- 
haps ee depended on the person who presented himself to 
his regard. At all events, it seems, it is a combination of 
these qualities that put him on the track of “Mutual Aid”, 
a conceplion which cannot be called rew since Espinasse 

[ Page 36 } 














PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


has written “Les Sociétés animales”, but which Kropotkin 
has enlarged, at once diffused among the people and ren- 
dered almost acceptable to official science, which, in England 
at least, had heretofore recognised only the struggle for exist- 
ence, tooth and nail. . . . 


It will certainly be said here and there that he was part of 
the Elite, that he was ofa superior essence. Perhaps it is 
so, but then only because he did not believe himself to be 
a superior man, because he felt himself the equal of all 
fighters for the Ideal, of all manual producers, because he 
knew himself to be the brother of all the “humiliated and 
offended”’. 


As Man, he was one of the best on earth, through the 
happy balancing of all parts of his being, the harmony of 
his intellectual, sensitive and psychical faculties, the initiating 
thought, the indefatigable kindness, the straightforwardness 
of his character. Peter Kropotkin was the torch-bearer, the 
tender, the honorable man: the good and virtuous Dissem- 


inator. 
PAUL RECLUS 





“MILLIONS OF HUMAN BEINGS HAVE LABORED TO CREATE THIS 
CIVILISATION ON WHICH WE PRIDE OURSELVES TO-DAY. OTHER 
MILLIONS, SCATTERED THROUGH THE GLOBE, LABOR TO MAIN- 
TAIN IT. WITHOUT THEM NOTHING WOULD BE LEFT IN FIFTY 
YEARS BUT RUINS. 


THERE IS NOT EVEN A THOUGHT, OR AN INVENTION, WHICH 
IS NOT COMMON PROPERTY ... THOUSANDS OF INVENTORS, 
KNOWN AND UNKNOWN, WHO HAVE DIED IN POVERTY, HAVE 
CO-OPERATED IN THE INVENTION OF EACH OF THESE MACHINES 


WHICH EMBODY THE GENIUS OF MAN.” 
THE CONQUEST OF BREAD 


[ Page 37 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


THE MOST GREATLY HUMANE MAN 





mas rol HAVE been asked to sum up the opinions of 
cee >=. Kropotkin. I believe it would be preferable to 


eS) ) recommend everyone to read, and make others 
ee 


ff A 





aed Ne i | read, his books. Ideas which are confused in 
xeon aed) $0 many ways with the collective conception 
elaborated in the mind of the old International and the an- 
archist movement of different countries, have been so clearly 
expounded by him in his brochures of propaganda that he 
certainly has no need of. interpreters. In any case, I really 
feel that I lack the courage to touch upon his luminous 
expositions. 


I prefer, on this occasion,... to speak of Kropotkin as man. 


The great charm of Kropotkin lies in the fact that in him 
the savant, the author, the propagandist, the man self -de- 
prived of privilege, are all blended in a harmonious unity 
that constitutes the most greatly humane man I have ever 

known in my life. : 


He loves man. All he thinks and all he does is determined 
by this fineness, by this great love of man, of all men, which 
is the primordial quality of his being. 
His entire life is a labor of love; whether he studies phy- 
siography and the natural sciences, examines the life of 
uman societies, or mingles in the revolutionary agitations 
and bitter struggles against tyrants and exploiters, his motive- 
force is always this ardent desire to make man more free, 
more powerful, happier. 


If the eminent talents with which Nature has endowed him 
and the privileged environment in which he found himself 
have placed him above the masses of his humbler and less 
fortunate brothers, he has not become presumptuous for 

[ Page 38 } 











PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


all that; he has not set himself to scorn those masses as 
often happens to a number of petty “great men”. He has 
not enclosed himself in the ivory tower of the “misunder- 
stood”. On the contrary, he has made use of his superior 
faculties as weapons perfected to fight the battles for human 
progress, and he has always thought that greater talents 
impose greater duties. He has even been always tormented 
as’ with remorse because of the fact that he was able to 
develop his mind and attain to moral and intellectual emin- 
ence whilst the great masses of the toilers stagnate in mis- 
ery and ignorance. It is with an ecstacy of. expiation that he 
has consecrated his life to the struggle against that injustice 
of which fate had made him the involuntary beneficiary. 
And that, not because of any metaphysical idea of Duty 
and Justice, but very simply because of the necessary radi- 
ance of the force, the wealth, of his moral nature. A 
systematic intellect, he has gathered the anarchist, concep- 
tions into a philosophical ensemble that may, or may not, be 
accepted. But all theories aside, he is anarchist-communist 
because he desires all men to be hap y and is convinced 
that the happiness of all can be achieved through the liberty 
of everyone and through the co-operation and the conscious 


and voluntary solidarity of all. 


It is for this that I love him. It is for this that not only 
those who claim the ideas of anarchism love him, but all 
men of feeling who dream of a better humanity. 


“Les Temps Nouveaux”’, Dec. 1912. ERRICO MALATESTA 


Sat 


“THE ORIGIN OF THE WEALTH OF THE RICH IS YOUR MISERY. 
LET THERE BE NO FOOR, THEN WE SHALL HAVE NO MILLION. 


AIRES”. THE PLACE OF ANARCHISM IN SOCIALISTIC EVOLUTION 
[ Page 39 ] 


“Memoirs ofa Revolutionist” 





Errico Malatesta 







Malatesta was a student of medicine, who had left the medical profession and also his 
fortune for the sake of the revolution: full of fire and intelligence, a ‘pure idealist, who 
all his life... has never thought whether he would have a piece of bread for his supper and 2 
a bed for the night. Without even so much as a room that he could call his own, he 
would sell sherbet in the streets of London to get his living, and in the evening write — 
brilliant articles for the Italian papers. Imprisoned in France, released, expelled, re- 
condemned in Italy, confined in an island, escaped, and again in Italy in disguise; al- 
ways in the hottest of the struggle, whether it be in Italy or elsewhere, — he has perse- 
vered in this life for thirty years in succession. And when we meet him again, released 
from a prison or escaped from an island, we find him just as we saw him last; always i. 
renewing the struggle, with the same love of men, the same absence of hatred toward __ 
his adversaries and jailers, the same hearty smile for a friend, the same caress for a child. 
PETER KROPOTKIN 


2 


[ Page 40] 








PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


KROPOTKIN— REVOLUTIONIST 


HE Anarchist movement lost its greatest expo- 
nent in Peter Alexandrovitch Kropotkin. 


oN Kropotkin’s life and activities demolish the shal- 
low arguments of our utilitarians, who judge 
all spiritual and intellectual life from their own 
narrow point of view. His work disproves the belief that 
ours is an age of specialists only. Like every great thinker, 
Kropotkin was many-sided in his intellectual activity; life 
and science as well as art found in him a great interpreter. 





Many speak of Kropotkin as the great scientist, the histo- 
rian, the philologue, the littérateur; he is all this, but he was 
at the same time far more—he was an active revolutionist! 
He was not satisfied, like so many scientists, merely to in- 
vestigate natural phenomena and make deductions which 
ought to be of value to mankind; he knew that such dis- 
coveries cannot be applied as long as the system of exploit- 
ation exists, and he therefore works with all his power for 
the Social Revolution which shall abolish exploitation. 
Were it not for men like Kropotkin, the pseudo-scientific 
Socialists would long since have succeeded in extinguishing 
the revolutionary flame in the hearts of the workers. It is to 
his lasting credit that he has used all his great knowledge 
to fight the demoralizing activities of these reformers, who 
use the name of Revolutionist to hide their mental corrup- 
tion. It is this — the uncompromising attitude, his direct 
participation in social revolt, his firm belief in the proleta- 
riat — which distinguished Peter Kropotkin from many other 
leaders of modern thought. 

Kropotkin was the most beloved comrade in the Anarchist 
movement; his name is a household word in the revolution- 
ary family in all parts of the world. Our ill-fated Japanese 


[ Page 41 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


comrades were proud of being called Kropotkinists. This 
was no idolatry on their part, but simply the expression of 
deep appreciation of his work. Those who have had 
the opportunity of meeting Kropotkin in his home or in 
public know that simplicity an modesty were his chief 
characteristics. As he never failed to emphasize that our 
place is among the workers in the factories and in the fields, 
not among the so-called intellectuals, so he was never hap- 
pier than when he sat with his comrades and fellow-work- 
ers. I remember his indignation many years ago in Chicago 
when he accepted an invitation to a social gathering, expect- 
ing to meet his comrades, and found himself instead among 
vulgar bourgeois women who pestered him for his autograph. 
The irony of it! The man who gave up gladly his aristo- 
cratic title and his position at the Russian court to go to the 


people being entertained by the porkocracy of Chicago! 


Of the thousands of congratulations and good wishes con- 
veyed to Peter Kropotkin by his admirers, friends and sym- 
pathizers, none found in his heart such a responsive echo 
as those expressed — most of them in silence— by the simple 
workers in the Anarchist movement, the men who are 
neither writers nor speakers, whose names are unknown to 
the great public, the quiet, self-sacrificing comrades without 
whom there would be no movement. 


Those of us who have shared their bed and their last bit of 
bread know their feeling for the beloved teacher, their love 
for the man who gave up his position among the favored 


ones and stepped down to the lowly to share their daily 


struggle, their sorrows, their aspirations; the man who be- 
came their guide in the sacred cause of the Social Revolu- 
tion, and the exponent ofa free Society. 


Kropotkin is the most widely read revolutionary author; the 
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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


Bible and the “Communist Manifesto” are the only works 
which have been translated into so many tongues as “The 
Words of'a Rebel”, “The Appeal to the Young”, and other 
writings of his. It would be impossible to state in how 
many editions and translations each of his pamphlets has 
appeared. Sometimes I wonder whether he recognized his 
own children: the pamphlets went through so many trans- 


Brations in their journeyings from one language to an- 
other ! 


He stood foremost among the thinkers and scientists of 
our time but in the memory of the rebel workers he will 
live mainly as their comrade, teacher and friend —- Peter, 


the Revolutionist. 
HIPPOLYTE HAVEL 


“THERE ARE EPOCHS... IN WHICH THE MORAL CONCEPTION 
CHANGES ENTIRELY. A MAN PERCEIVES THAT WHAT HE HAD 
CONSIDERED MORAL IS THE DEEPEST IMMORALITY. IN SOME 
INSTANCES, IT IS A CUSTOM, A: VENERATED TRADITION, THAT 
IS FUNDAMENTALLY IMMORAL; IN OTHERS WE FIND A MORAL 
SYSTEM FRAMED IN THE INTERESTS OF A SINGLE CLASS. WE 
CAST THEM OVERBOARD AND RAISE THE CRY “DOWN WITH 


MORALITY !” IT BECOMES A DUTY TO ACT “IMMORALLY.” 
ANARCHIST MORALITY 


[ Page 43 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


OUR ILLUSTRIOUS MASTER 


(Seo e rag LIGHT has just been extinguished; one of those 
KES, my beacons destined to illumine the dolorous way 


oy that humanity traverses on the march toward 
(25) the promised land of happiness. 






===) A magnificent intellect has just vanished; one 
of those intellects which are capable, because of their vast 
extent, of surveying the entire domain that human under- 
standing can embrace. 


A conscience has just left us; one of those consciences that, 
in their purity, arise as marvellous exceptions from the breast 
of universal putrefaction. 


Kropotkin has just died. 


Death spares none. Great and small, powerful and impo- 
tent, the privileged and the disinherited, the intelligent and 
the stupid, the savant and the ignoramus, the brave and 
the cowardly, the good and the wicked, all are indiscrimin- 
ately struck down, as if to remind each of us that we are 
marching toward the same fatal end. 


In Kropotkin the most exalted virtues were allied to the 
most precious gifts. Those lives are very rare indeed, which 
offer, in an equal degree, the noble and salutary example 


of the Beautiful and the Good so closely united. — 


By birth Kropotkin belonged to the oldest nobility of Rus- 
sia. His childhood was passed in luxury, he grew up in the 
pride ofa princely race and his family dedicated him, from 
his adolescence, to the pomp of the highest posts in the em- 
pire of the czars. 


But behold!... this heart of exquisite sensibility, this brain of 
exceptional comprehension, this will of rare quality, this 
[ Page 44 } 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


conscience of inflexible uprightness, Peter Kropotkin, who 
would have been able to live in opulence and idleness, has 
lived by labor and in poverty; Kropotkin who would have 
been able to shine among the oppressors, has undergone the 
fearful trials of persecution; Kropotkin, who, in his own 
country, and elsewhere, would have been able to exercise 
the highest functions, and occupy the most envied places 
has had to take the roads of exile and ask the modest re- 
sources by which he lived of the fecund labor that yields 
him today our respectful affection and assures him of the 
merited gratitude of : coming generations. 


It is voluntarily that this illustrious master, whose disciples 
we are proud to be, has renounced the pleasures of wealth, 
the splendor of brilliant positions, the vanities of high of- 
fices. 


From the day when, having bent above human pain, he 
sounded the profundity of it, his generous heart vowed to 
do everything possible to spread the balm of consolation 
over the wound of the suffering; from the day when this 
scrupulous observer, attentive and sincere, discerned the 
cause which breeds the servitude and misery of the masses, 
he swore to courageously denounce this cause and to combat 
its disastrous effects vigorously; from the day when his 
scholarly and philosophical works led him to ascertain that 
anarchism alone inspires in the poignant distress of the 
exploited multitude and in the bondage of the oppressed 
masses the spirit of revolt and the methods of action most 
suitable to liberate them from slavery and hunger, he con- 
secrated himself entirely to the libertarian idea of which 
he was and will remain one of the purest and most prolific 
of disciples. 

What a great, splendid figure is that of this man abdicating 
of his own, deliberate volition all the privileges that birth 
[ Page 45 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


and fortune conferred upon him and who had not failed to 
amplify the most remarkable capacities in order to conse- 
crate himself for fifty years to the worship of the truth he 
had glimpsed. . 

Truly one does not know which to admire. most: the man 
who joyfully makes such sacrifices for the cause he espouses 
or the cause that is capable of | creating such sacrifices. 


We understand Kropotkin deserting the spheres where his 
pate was marked in order to live among those whom he 

ad given himself the mission to enlighten and convert; we > 
can conceive that he unhesitatingly preferred the harsh ex- 
istence the ardor of his convictions imposed upon him to 
the gilded life that was open to him. And we do not exalt 
his merit beyond measure. 


The workingman who, as anarchist, risks his bread and his 
liberty every day, on this level, appears to us the equal 
of Kropotkin. 


But when one thinks of the platitudes, the duplicities, the 
base intrigues that the ambitious and the upstarts multiply 
in order to arm themselves with a portion of power or of 
wealth and when to the disinterestedness and sincerity of 
a Kropotkin one opposes the vileness of which certain men 
among the people render themselves guilty in order to rank 
among the rulers of the rich, the rascality of these impudent 
rogues is a powerful contrast to the pure conscience of this 
prince turned anarchist. 


Sneeringly, mockers and envious, the vulgar will say: 
“Shamefil fall!” We say to ourselves: “Admirable ascent!” 
The “Libertaire” will not fail to recall and study the con- 
siderable work of him whom death has just ravished from 
Science and Humanity. It will state what both owe to him 
whom we mourn. 

[ Page 46 } 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


Yes, we mourn him, although since August 1914 a grave 
dissention separated us from him. 


He had written unforgettable pages against militarism, war, 
and nationalism, pages that will remain a model of clarity 
and vigor. His marvellous clear-sightedness caused him to 
have a presentiment of the imminent conflict. He had fore- 
told and denounced it in a fashion so gripping that it was 
an inexpressible surprise to us when we learned his attitude. 


And when we saw his name, his illustrious respected, be- 
loved name included in the Manifesto of the sixteen which 
set up between the signers and ourselves an insurmountable 
barrier, a cruel disillusion, an immense sadness struck at 
our hearts. 


We well knew that the attitude of Kropotkin on the world- 

war was not inspired by any interest, any cowardice; it was 

an error on his part; but what a formidable and desolating 
! 

error ! 


To some degree Kropotkin was already dead to us since 
1914; our hearts went into inconsolable mourning for him. 
Nevertheless he was, in our common work, atoiler, so im- 
passioned, his labor was so conscientious, his effort so 
persevering his works remain so vast and powerful that 
nothing will be able to dispel the gratitude we owe him for it. 


Kropotkin had gone to die in the country where he was 
born. After half'a century of exile, he had come to termin- 
ate his days in the land where they commenced. He has 
not lived in Russia except in his youth and in his old age. 


How many changes were accomplished there between these 


two epochs of his life! 


The Russian people have written with their blood the first 
act of the historical drama that will be the world-revolution, 
{ Page 47 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


the revolution which Kropotkin has so ardently loved and 
for which he has so nobly striven. 


This first act of the universal revolution is doubtlessly not 
such as he would have desired and the illustrious old man 
was not of those who blindly approve and sanctimoniously 
exalt all that was done there. 


But if the social régime that is at present affirmed in Rus- 
sia is not that which Kropotkin has dreamed of and would 
have desired to establish, we certainly know that he was 
ready for everything as we are ourselves in order to defend 
revolutionary Russia against all her enemies. 


He had the felicity of saluting before yielding his last breath, 
the dawn of the World which will be tomorrow at peace, in 


well-being and liberty. 


May we, also, at the end of our career, assist in the advent, 
in our own countries of this regime of liberty, abundance and 
harmony, to which we have consecrated all our energies! 


On that day, like the Old Man of the Scriptures, like Peter 

Kropotkin, like all those who have seen their dearest hopes 

Foe to be falfilled, we will be able to chant our “Nunc 
imittis!...” 


SEBASTIAN FAURE 
Fo 


“In the next revolution we hope this cry will go forth: 

Burn the guillotines; demolish the prisons; drive away the judges, policemen, and in- 

formers — the impurest race upon the face of the earth; treat as a brother the man who 

has been led by passion to do ill to his fellow; above all, take from the ignoble 

products of the middle-class idleness the possibility of displaying their vices in attractive 

colors; and be sure that but few crimes will mar our society.” WORDS OF A REBEL 
{ Page 48 ] 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


PETER KROPOTKIN 


= E is the man of whose friendship I am proud. 
z) I know no man whose disinterestedness is so 
| great, no one who possesses such a store of 
| varied knowledge, and no one whose love of 
4, mankind is up to the standard of his. 


pes Wie eh Sea 





He has the genius of the heart, and where his originality is 
greatest, as in “Mutual Aid’, it is his heart which has 
guided his intellect. 


The passion for liberty which is quenched in other men, 
when they have attained the liberty they wanted for them- 
selves, is inextinguishable in his breast. 


His confidence in men gives evidence of the nobility of his 
soul, even if he had perhaps given the work of his life a 
firmer foundation, having received a deeper impression of 
the slowness of evolution. : 


But it is impossible not to admire him when we see him 

e 2 e e ° J e 
preserving his enthusiasm in spite of bitter experience and 
numerous deceptions. 


A character like his is an inspiration and an example. 
“Mother Earth’’, Dec. 1912. 


In 1906 the Danes of London desired my arrival in Eng- 
land so that I deliver an address at the annual féte in 
celebration of our constitution and they begged me to let 
them know of some friends whose presence would be agree- 
able to me on that occasion. I named but one friend. 

[ Page 49 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


Since Kropotkin understood everything, even a little of the 
Scandinavian languages, I caused him to be invited to the 
banquet. He sent a polite refusal to the committee under 
some pretext or other. As I asked him the real reason, 


he responded ° 


“TI cannot come. Doubtlessly they will toast the King of — 
Denmark and the King of England. In conformity with my 
convictions I could not rise and this would scandalize the 
assembly. A month ago I was invited toa banquet of 
the Geographical Society of London. The chairman pro- 
posed, “The King!” Everybody arose and I alone remained 
seated. It was a painful moment. And I was thunderstruck 
‘when immediately afterward the same chairman cried, “Long 
live Prince Kropotkin!” and everybody, without exception 
arose.” , 


The members of the Geographical Society were men of 
mind and soul. They have set the example. In good society, 
no matter where, one only needs to say: “Peter Kropotkin!” 
and, regardless of political or social convictions, everybody 
will arise, moved. 

GEORG BRANDES 


e 


“The greatest obstacle to the maintenance of a certain moral level in our present socie- 
ties lies in the absence of social equality. Without real equality, the sense of justice can 
never be universally developed, because Justice implies the recognition of 
Equality; while in a society in which the principles of justice would not be contra- 
dicted at every step by the existing inequalities of rights and possibilities of develop- 


ment, they would be bound to spread and to enter into the habits of the people.” 
MODERN SCIENCE AND ANARCHISM 
~ [ Page 50} 


a5 
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Poe KROPOTKIN : TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


OBITUARY — PRINCE KROPOTKIN 





—~ ~~ HE announcement of the death of Prince Peter 
IN, Ks Alexeivich Kropotkin on February 8, in asmall 
: S41 town near Moscow, where he was virtually in- 
is 29 2), terned, will have been received with regret by 
wer = a wide circle ofall classes and creeds. He had 
left England, which had been his home for many years, for 
Russia in 1917, after the revolution had broken out, no 
doubt, with the hope that his “anarchist” aspirations would 
be realized on a large scale. It need hardly be said that he 
was grievously disappointed. But this is not the place to 
deal in detail with Kropotkin’s political views, except to 
express regret that his absorption in these seriously dimin- 
ished the services which otherwise he might have rendered 


to Geography. 







He had long been interested in Siberia and its geographical 
problems, especially those connected with the Amur and 
the Usuri... During his five years in Siberia he had oppor- 
tunities for carrying out exploring and survey work on the 
Amur and in Manchuria, the maps of which abounded in 
blanks and errors. Later still he explored the Western Say- 
ans, and caught a glimpse of the Siberian Highlands. Fi- 
nally he undertook a long journey to discover a direct com- 
munication between the gold mines of the Yakutsk province 
and Transbaikalia All this proved of great service to Krop- 
otkin when, after his return to Europe, he took up the dif- 
ficult problem of the structure of Northern and Central Asia. 


In time, Kropotkin and his brother Alexander, who was 
stationed at Irkutsk, became more and more interested in 
the revolutionary movements which were developing in Rus- 
[ Page 51] ; 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


sia and oiher European countries. They decided to leave 
the Army and return to St. Petersburg; this they did early 
in 1867. Kropotkin entered the University where he worked 
hard for five years mainly on scientific subjects, devoting 
special attention to geography. He became intimately as- 
sociated with the Imperial Geographical Society in his ca- 
pacity of secretary to its section of physical geography. But 
his main geographical interest at this time was the vast 
problem of the Orography of Northern Asia, the maps of 
which he considered were “mostly fantastic”. This led him 
in time to extend his investigations into Central Asia. He 
not only made use of the results of his own travels in Siber- 
ia, but with infinite labor collected all the barometrical, ge- 
ological and physical observations that had been recorded 
by other travellers. This preparatory work took him more 
than two years; followed by months of intense thought to 
bring order out of what seemed a “bewildering chaos”. 
Suddenly the solution flashed upon him. The structural 
lines of Asia, he was convinced, did not run north and 
south or east and west, as Humbolt represented them, but 
from north-east to south-west. This work he considered his 
chief contribution to science. 


The next important geographical work undertaken by Krop- 
otkin at the request of the Imperial Geographical Society 
was a journey through Finland in 1871-72 to study the 
glaciology of the country. He returned with a mass of most 
interesting observations. After a visit to Western Europe, 
Kropotkin returned to St. Petersburg, and in 1874 presented 
his report on Finland. This he did at a meeting of the 
Geographical Society where it was keenly discussed. A day 
or two later he was arrested, and finally imprisoned in the 
terrible fortress of Saint Peter and St. Paul, but was permit- 
ted to finish his work on the Glacial Period in Finland and 

{ Page 52 ] 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


in Central Europe, which with his magnum opus on the Or- 
ography of Asia were published after his escape, while he 
was residing in England under the name of Levashoff. In 
April 1876 he had been transferred to another prison, and 
in a few days placed in the military hospital. The romantic 
story of his escape from this hospital is well-known. He 
had no difficulty in passing through Finland and Sweden to 
Christiania, where in a British steamer he crossed to Eng- 
land, landing in Hull and going to Edinburgh. As he had 
to work for his living he began to send, in his assumed 
name of Levashoff notes, mainly geographical, to the 
“Times” and “Nature”; of the latter I was then sub-editor. 
He ultimately, in 1877, I think, moved to London where I 
made his personal acquaintance, which developed into a 
life friendship. Soon after his arrival a large work in Rus- 
sian was to come for review and naturally it was sent to 
Levashoff. He called to see me with the book and asked if 
I read Russian, and alas I had to admit that I could not. 
Pointing to the title-page he told me it was a treatise on the 
geology and glaciation of Finland, by P. Kropotkin, that he 
sent to me. He told me briefly his story, and naturally I 
was intensely interested. I told him we had no one ina 
position to review the book, and he might write an article, 
stating brieflly its main features and the conclusions arrived 
at, which I am glad to say he did. Between London, France 
and Switzerland he migrated, until, afte rtwo years’ impris- 
onment in France he finally settled down in London, where 
he remained, with a few intermissions till his unfortunate 
return to Russia in 1917. He soon formed literary connec- 
tions in England in addition to the “Times” and “Nature”. 
He wrote largely for the “Nineteenth Century”, through 
which he ran his two well-known books, “Fields, Factories 
and Workshops” and “Mutual Aid among Animals”. To 
the eleventh edition of the “Britannica” he contributed most 
[ Page 53] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


of the Russian geographical articles. Of course, he soon 
made himself at home at the Royal Geographical Society, 
and was a valued contributer to the “Journal”. Among his 
contributions to the “Nineteenth Century” was an article in 
December 1885, entitled, “What Geography Ought to Be”, 
which is well-worth reading. It is based on the Report on 
Geographical Education issued by the Society in that year, 
and gives a comprehensive view of what he considered the 
field of geography ought to be, its value from the scientific 
and practical standpoint, and the place it ought to hold in 
education. “Surely”, he says, “there is scarcely another 
science which might be rendered as attractive for the child 
as geography, and as powerful an instrument for the gen- 
eral development of the mind, for familiarising the scholar 
with the true method of scientific reasoning, and for awak- 
ening the taste for natural science altogether.’ | 


Unfortunately, Kropotkin had never again an opportunity 
of doing active work in the field of scientific exploration. 
He became more and more absorbed in the promotion of | 
his socialistic or rather anarchistic views, and suffered more 
and more from the consequences of the hardships he had 
to endure in prison. In his later years he became almost a 
chronic invalid, wheeled in a Bath chair about Brighton, 
where he lived for the last few years. His main contributions 
to geography are the records of his explorations in Eastern 
Siberia and the discussion of the great problems which they 
suggested to him, and his investigations into the Glaciology 
of Finland. He was a keen observer, with a well-trained 
intellect, familiar with all the sciences bearing on his subject; 
and although his conclusions may not be universally ac- 
cepted, there is no doubt that his contributions to geograph- 
ical science are of the highest value. He made many friends 

{ Page 54 ] 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


in England. He had a singularly attractive and loveable 
personality, sympathetic nature, a warm but perhaps too 
tender heart, and a wide knowledge in literature, science 
and art. J. S.K. 


& 


“And in this ceaseless struggle how often has the worker, sinking under the weight of 
difficulties, exclaimed in vain: 


“ “Where are those young men who have been educated at our expense? whom we have 
clothed and fed whilst they studied? For whom, with backs bowed down under heavy 
loads, and with empty stomachs, we have built these houses, these academies, these 
museums? For whom we, with pallid faces, have printed those fine books we cannot so 
much as read? Where are they, those professors who claim to possess the science of 
humanity, and in whose eyes mankind is not worth a rare species of caterpillar? Where 
are those men who preach of liberty and who never rise to defend ours, daily trodden 
under foot? These writers, these poets, these painters, all this band of hypocrites, in 
short, who speak of the people with tears in their eyes, and who nevertheless never 
come among us to help us in our work?’ ” 


“You, doctors, who have learnt Socialism by bitter experience; never weary of telling 
us to-day, to-morrow, in and out of season, that humanity itself hurries onward to de- 
cay if men remain in the present conditions of existence and work; that all your medi- 
caments must be powerless against disease while the majority of mankind vegetate in 
conditions absolutely contrary to those which science tells us are healthful; convince the 
people that it is the causes of disease which must be uprooted, and show us all that is 
necessary to remove them. 


Come with your scalpel and dissect for us with unerring hand this society of ours fast 
hastening to putrefaction. Tell us what a rational existence should and might be. In- 
sist, as true surgeons that a gangrenous limb must be amputated when it may poison 
the whole body.” ; ; : : : : : 

“Ay, all of us together, we who suffer and are insulted daily, we are a multitude whom 
no man can number, we are the ocean that can embrace and swallow up all else. 


When we have but the will to do it, that very moment will Justice be done: that very 


instant the tyrants of the earth shall bite the dust.” 
WORDS OF A REBEL 


[ Page 55 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


“MY DAYS AND DREAMS?” 





“<<<i| MONG those who came from time to time to 
N peak for our Socialist group in Sheffield or to 
W| stay at our “Commonwealth Cafe” were, be- 
| sides William Morris, two notable personalities 

paws era] Peter Kropotkin and Annie Besant. Their 
work and influence both world-wide—the one in the Anar- 
chist, and the other in the Theosophist, field — have been 
really important. Though never myself strictly identified 
with either of these movements I have been in touch with 
them, and consequently in more or less friendly relations 
with their two leading spirits during a long period — now 
nearly thirty years. Both characters are certainly remarkable 
for their vigor, their sincerity, their ability and devotion. 
Kropotkin at the age of seventy and after fifty years of pas- 
sionate conflict with “government and authority” still retains 
his sunny and almost child-like temperament and still be- 
lieves in the speedy oncoming of an age of perfectly volun- 
tary and harmonious co-operation in the human race. In- 
deed it is mainly due to him that this magnificent dream 
has spread so far and wide over the world, and has done 
so much as it has towards our realization. The dramatic 
circumstances too of Kropotkin’s own life have greatly 
helped—his early escapes from prison and from death, his 
abandonment ofa princely inheritance to become the com- 
panion and fellow-prisoner of criminals and outcasts, his 
later life spent in poverty and among obscure circles of 
enthusiasts — these things combined with encyclopaedic 
knowledge and a high scientific reputation have compelled 
attention and respect. As in the case of | many ardent social 
reformers, and certainly in the case of most notorious Anar- 
chists, there is a charming naiveté about Kropotkin. It is so 
easy— if you believe that all human evil is summed up in 
: [ Page 56 ] 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES G© APPRECIATIONS 


the one fatal word “government” (or it may be that the word 
is “white-slave traffic”, or “war”, or “drink”, or anything 
else) — to order your life and your theories accordingly. 
Everything is explained by its relation to one thing. It is 
easy, but it is misleading. And Kropotkin’s writings despite 
their erudition, suffer from this naivete. Whether it be History 
(his “French Revolution”,) or Natural History (his “Mutual 
Aid”) or economic theory (his “Paroles d’un Revolté”) the 
reader finds one solution for everything, and the counter- 
vailing facts and principles consistently — though certainly 
not intentionally — ignored. This detracts from the value 
of the writings; though in justice it should be said that the 
principles on which Kropotkin so vigorously insists — i. e. 
individual liberty and free association—are of foundational 
importance. In a country like Russia—obsessed by author- 
iiy and officialism — it is not unnatural that the reformers, 
such as Tolstoy and Kropotkin, should be almost over- 
conscious of the governmental evil; and this fact rather 
encourages the hope that Russia may one day after all be 
the leader in the great European reaction towards a freer 
and more voluntary state of society. 


The naivete of the social reformer explains too the common 
fact that the Anarchist who is in theory “thirsting for the 
blood of Kings” and occasionally perhaps capable of per- 

etrating a deed of violence himself, is generally (like Kropot- 
kin) the gentlest and mildest of men who “would not hurt 


a fly.” 


It is only such men—having the love of humanity in their 
hearts—who are able to believe in the speedy realization of 
an era of universal goodwill; and again it is only such men 
—being innocent enough to believe that the only impediment 
to realization of this era is a certain wicked person in “au- 
[ Page 57 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


thority’ ’__who can spur themselves on to the bloody dispatch 
of that person. 


“My Days and Dreams” 


With profound regret have I learned of the death of our 

ood comrade Peter Kropotkin. Never again will we see his 
genial and radiant face, never more will we hear his words 
of confidence and encouragement. But the memory of his 
great life spent for the cause of the toilers will always en- 
dure with us. 


Special Kropotkin Number EDWARD CARPENTER 
“Les Temps Nouveaux”, March, 1921. 


z 


“Art is in our ideal synonymous with creation, it must look ahead; but save a few rare, 
very rare exceptions, the professional artist remains too philistine to perceive new 
horizons.” 


“Nowadays the greatest honor a painter can aspire to is to see his canvas, framed in 
gilded wood, hung in a museum, a sort of old curiosity shop, where you see, as in the 
Prado, Murillo’s Ascension next to a beggar of Velasquez and the dogs of Phillip IT. 
Poor Velasquez and poor Murillo! Poor Greek statues which lived in the Acropolis 
of their cities, and are now stifled beneath the red cloth hangings of the Louvre!” 


° . . s . e 


“Art, in order to develop, must be bound up with industry by a thousand intermediate 

degrees, blended, so to say, as Ruskin and the great Socialist poet Morris have proved 

so often and so well. Everything that surrounds man, in the street, in the interior and 
exterior of public monuments, must be of a pure artistic form.” 

THE CONQUEST OF BREAD 

[ Page 58 ] 








estas = RE. 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS | 


AN EPISODE FROM LIFE 


ae ea) F beggars and swindlers we had no lack in 


Patt 
Fi ate Chancery Lane; it suited their purpose to regard 











a a) 
‘ Ce y a Humanitarian League as primarily designed 
Ni V5) j; for the relief of the impecunious; its very name, 
GSae7,2) they felt, could imply nothing less. They were 
mostly young men who seemed to act in concert; for they 
usually came, as if on circuit, at certain times of the year. 
Their mentality was ofa low order (or they thought that 
ours was), for though they showed a. certain ingenuity in 
collecting previous information about the parties on whom 
they tried to impose, they often presented their case so badly 
as to make it palpably absurd. Sometimes, however, a really 
clever and humorous rogue would make his appearance. 
There was one such who began a wordy statement that if 
I would but grant him twenty minutes, he could convince 
me that he was deserving of half a crown; but when I 
hinted that if the interview was going to cost me halfa 
crown, I would rather be spared the twenty minutes, his 
solemnity fell from him like a cloud, and with a twinkling 
eye he said that he would be only too pleased to cut his 
story as short as I liked. 





When I was a master at Eton I used to subscribe to the 
Charity Organization Socicty, and I was presented by that 
austere body with a number of tickets, one of which was to 
be given to every beggar who called; but the trouble was 
that the tramps declined to regard the “scrap of paper” 
seriously, and informed us, in effect, that when they asked 
for bread we were offering them a stone. It certainly did not 
seem quite a human way of treating a fellow-being; unless 
one could hold the comfortable belief, confidently expressed 
to me by one of my Eton colleagues, a very religious man, 
[ Page 59 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


that every mendicant one meets has had a good chance in 
life, and has deliberately thrown it away. The logic of that 


view was to say “no” to everybody. 


I once had an opportunity of seeing the exactly opposite 
theory put into practice. When I was living in Surrey, I had 
a visit from Prince Kropotkin, who was looking for a house 
in the district, and we spent a day in walking about on that | 
uest. We met a troop of beggars whose appearance was 
decidedly professional; and I noticed that Kropotkin at once 
responded to their appeal. Later in the day we fell in with 
the same party, and again, when they told their tale of woe, 
Kropotkin put his hand in his pocket. At this I ventured to 
ask him whether he observed that they were the same lot; 
to which he replied: “Oh, yes. I know they are probably 
impostors and will drink the money at the public house; but 
we are going back to our comfortable tea, and I cannot run 
the risk of refusing help where it may possibly be needed.” 
If in this matter one sympathizes with Kropotkin rather than 
with the Charity Organization folk, I suppose it is on Shel- 
ley’s principle-—that he would “rather be damned with Plato 
and Lord Bacon than be saved with Paley and Malthus.” 


“Seventy Years Among Savages” HENRY S. SALT 


¥% 


“We do not wish to be ruled. And, by this very fact, do we not declare that we our- 
selves wish to rule nobody? We do not wish to be deceived, we wish always to be told 
nothing but the truth. And, by this very fact, do we not declare that we ourselves do 
not wish to deceive anybody, that we promise to always tell the truth, nothing but the 
truth, the whole truth? We do not wish to have the fruits of our labor stolen from us. 
And, by that very fact, do we not declare that we respect the fruits of others’ labor ?” 
ANARCHIST MORALITY 
[ Page 60 J 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


KROPOTKIN AND TOLSTOY 


would have liked to evoke the saintly face of 
Kropotkin more contemplatively. I would have 
= liked to express all that his book, “Autour 
SSOrGe: d’une Vie” has meant for me and the radiant 
2e om glow _ has left in my heart. Always I think of 
it wit ial gratitude. 












C7—e 


EN (GP 






You know that I have loved Tolstoy very much. But I have 
always had the impression that Kropot in has been what 
Tolstoy has written. Simply, naturally, has he realized in 
his own life the ideal of moral purity, of serene abnegation, 
of | perfect love of humanity that the tormented genius of 
Tolstoy desired all his life, only achieving it in his art, (save 


during happy and rare moments, by flights, powerful and 
broken). 


I join with pious affection in the homage you render to your 


great friend. 


ROMAIN ROLLAND 
“Les Temps Nouveaux” » March, 1921, 


x 


“Russian literature is a rich mine of original poetic thought. It has a freshness and 
youthfulness which is not found to the same extent in older literatures. It has, more- 
Over, a sincerity and simplicity of expression which render it all the more attractive to 
__ the mind that has grown sick of literary artificiality. And it has this distinctive feature, 
that it brings within the domain of Art — the poem, the novel, the drama — nearly all 
those questions, social and political, which in Western Europe and America, at least in 
our present generation, are discussed chiefly in the political writings of the day, but 
seldom in literature. . . . 


It is not to blue-books, or to newspaper leaders, but to its works of Art that one must 
go to Russia in order to understand the political, economical, and social ideals of the 
country—the aspirations of the history-making portions of Russian society.” 

RUSSIAN LITERATURE 
[ Page 61] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


ONE OF THE MOST ADMIRABLE 
APOSTLES 


==] VERY man of feeling ought to pay a pious and 
vy touching tribute to the memory of him who has 
.~e) just passed away, after having lived and suf- 
WA) VGA WA fered one of the most admirable careers as 
| Soeeere2D| apostle that has ever been dreamed of. Kropot- 
kin represents and always will represent the symbol of him 
who rises in his righteousness and honesty, and who thus - 
becomes a magnificent destroyer of the badly-conceived laws 
that surround him and the things that hem him in. The 
unity of that long, vast, and precious existence, its impec- 
cable harmony, the power of its anger and its rebellion 
against all abuse and all injustice, that is to say, at eel 
step, confers that superior intelligence and genius whic 
only morality can create. Are the generous libertarian theo- 
ries of Kropotkin applicable to present humanity; do the 
not rise too high above certain practical considerations Shek 
the positive sense of collective conditions ought to respect? 
There remains, nevertheless the shining example of the at- 
titude of this man who did not care to accept iniquity and 
who was so earnestly intent against it during so many years, 
who served all causes of liberty whatever the formula may 
be. It shows how completely heart and soul are capable of 
tearing themselves from traditions, customs, established 
cults, in order to designate, across that which is, that which 
ought to be. This beauty is communicative. The obscure 
masses need this in order to possess themselves as human 
beings once more; and the benefit of sucl: examples are in- 
calculable. 




















HENRI BARBUSSE 
ai 


[ Page 62 ] 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


SOUVENIRS OF A GREAT ANARCHIST 
== <= N the thirteenth of February, 1921, Moscow and 
7 (eS) 

We) 


SS 













with it the entire world, buried Kropotkin. This 
was the funeral of a great spirit and a great 
heart and will remain one of the moments in 
which one wants death to be least thought of. 
On the contrary, the very sight of the coffin and the open 
grave eloquently speaks of life, of struggle, of liberty, of 


the immortality of the human soul. 








“Kropotkins never die!” read one of the telegrams received 
by the widow of the great anarchist immediately following 
his death in the village. of Dimitrov, government of Mos- 
cow. This telegram was sent by the ‘Society of True Liberty” 
in memory of Leo Nicolaevich Tolstoy, a society which 
groups together the friends and intellectual sympathisers of 
another great Russian anarchist, Leo Tolstoy. 


Behind Kropotkin’s coffin, among a numerous throng, 
marched, accordingly, in fraternal ranks, the Tolstoyans, 
with their flag made carried the device: “Toward True 
Liberty, toward the absence of power, through Love and 
Mutual Aid”. And when the cortege approached the edifice 
of the Tolstoy Museum in Pretchistenka Street, now Kropot- 
kin Street, everyone noticed with astonishment the black 
flag of mourning which floated above the museum, at the 
pediment of the enormous banderol with an extract of the 
last letter of Kropotkin on Tolstoy, and on the lower part 
of the building, between the columns, the large bust of Tolstoy 
on a mourning pedestal, like the shadow of a great man 
who would have risen to bring into the world beyond, the 
spirit of another great man.... 

Upon Kropotkin’s tomb, among other orators, also spoke 
a representative of the Tolstoyans. 

[ Page 63 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


The friends and intellectual sympathizers of Tolstoy have 
not vainly, in an unanimous i ea honored the memory 
of Kropotkin. This group which occupies an altogether 
unique place in Russia, independent of party-struggles, which 
observes a negative attitude in opposition to all organized 
State violence, and realizes, sometimes at the cost of great 
sacrifices, its own conception of life, cannot fail to estimate 
at its true value, the great force of the convincing character 
of the anarchistic precepts of Kropotkin. Furthermore, we 
who profess the principles of love and of non-resistance to 
violence, could not and cannot remain indifferent to the 
theory of the great revolutionist concerning mutual aid, as 
long as the factor of evolution is opposed by him to Darwin’s 
law of the struggle for existence, a law whose action in the 
domain of mutual social relations has been and still is so 
dreadful and so unfortunate. : 


We have considered Kropotkin as near us in spirit and we 
have been conscious of him in a peculiarly vivid manner 
when, to our proposal of participating in the public com- 
memoration of the tenth anniversary of Tolstoy’ s death 
(November 20, 1920) he had responded by a very beautiful 
letter, full of love and respect for the memory of the great 
Russian writer and philosopher. 


Moreover, many of us have been united to Kropotkin by 
personal relations of friendship and sympathy. During the 
early part of Kropotkin’s life in Russia, after his return from 
abroad, (a very painful time) some of Tolstoy’s friends strove 
to be useful to him in the measure of their power and to 
lighten his life in its material aspect. The very place of the 
last habitation of Kropotkin in the little village of Dimitrov, 
near Moscow was sought out and taken care of for his 
sake with the help of sympathizers of Tolstoy. 

[ Page 64 ] 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES &© APPRECIATIONS 


Our sentiment of love and respect for the man that Kropot- 
kin was is indeed comprehensible! By his personal life, by 
the sweetness of his character, by his rare tenderness and 
the modesty of his demeanor, by his disinterestedness, he 
was, it seems to us, a true Christian. 


Yes, the memory of Kropotkin will never be forgotten by us. 
In the firmament of Russian life, Tolstoy and Kropotkin 
shine as two guiding stars and the light at ites stars which 
point out the way will always preserve its significance for us. 


Moscow, September 3, 1921. BULGAKOFF 


¥5 


“It seems hopeless to look for mutual-aid institutions and practices in modern society. 
What could remain of them? And yet, as soon as we try to ascertain how the millions 
of human beings live, and begin to study their everyday relations, we are struck with 
the immense part which the mutual-aid and mutual-support principles play even now-a- 
days in human life. Although the destruction of mutual-aid institutions has been going 
On in practice and theory, for full three or four hundred years, hundreds of millions 
of men continue to live under such institutions; they piously maintain them and en- 
deavour to reconstitute them where they have ceased to exist. In our mutual relations 
every one of us has his moments of revolt against the fashionable individualistic creed 
of the day, and actions in which men are guided by their mutual-aid inclinations consti- 
tute so great a pdtt of our daily intercourse that if a stop to such actions could be put 
all further ethical progress would be stopped at once. Human society itself could not be 
maintained for even so much as the lifetime of a single generation.” 


“The ethical importance of the communal possessions, small as they are, is still greater 
than their economical value. They maintain in village life a nucleus of customs and 
habits of mutual aid which undoubtedly acts as a mighty check upon the development 
of reckless individualism and greediness, which small land-ownership is only too prone 
to develop. Mutual aid in all possible circumstances of village life is part of the routine 
life in all parts of the country.” MUTUAL AID 
[ Page 65 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


THE INDEFATIGABLE REBEL 


UCH a loss fills our hearts with profound sor- 


—— 
ie 


MEG rN «|| row. We, who have had the opportunity of 


~«4| knowing him, of speaking extensively with him, 

‘e,/a)-.| of sensing all his grandeur of soul, his exquisite 
bear =i) goodness, his invincible faith, we who have felt 
first that inexpressible bitterness of ascertaining the absolute 
disagreement between him and almost all of our comrades 
apropos of our attitude toward the war, we have not for a 
moment ceased loving him, feeling ourselves with him, well 
knowing that even if he had fallen into a fatal error the old 
rebel would come to himself when the reveille of the revolu- 





tion would sound; would be there when the great task of 


construction and reconstruction would begin, the great work 
that he had indefatigably affirmed in spite of the skeptic- 
ally pretentious theorists, the mockery of vulgar politicians, 
the persecutions of odious dominators and the apathy of 


deluded mobs. 


The revolution has perhaps never had a firmer believer or 
a greater apostle than Peter Kropotkin. He has not doubted 
it for a single day, a single moment. Its great hour had 
struck for him before the hour of his death. Toa friend who 
had gone to see him a few months ago, in order to give 
him a letter from us, he expressed once more his unfalter- 
ing faith in the luminous revolutionary future. Yet through- 
out the Bolshevist aberrations, which he judged very se- 
verely—for with an admirable perspicacity he had foreseen 
them during forty years and had begun to give the alarm 
when sages and scientists deemed it puerile exaltation to 
still speak of armies of insurrection, and of barricades — 
this great scientist had nothing but words of encouragement, 
counsels of firmness and proposals of action. 


[ Page 66 ] 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


The malady which undermined him for more than 20 years 
must indeed have diminished his extraordinary activity. But, 
up to his last gasp, he continued his labor of savant and of 
anarchist with all the strength at his command, more through 
his iron will than through his worn-out body. 


With what passion did he speak of his Ethics, which he 
knew must be his last work and he sighed: 


“I am no longer young and arrayed against me are a half 
dozen English false Darwinists who have thetime to accu- 
mulate facts and arguments that I am no longer able to verify. 
There are many others of them of greater importance, and 
much more conclusive, but my means and my forces no 
longer permit me so much research. Science will prove that 
I was right some day, but it would be urgent to cry to the 
world without possibility of refutation: “Enough of competi- 
tion and conflicts; the great factor of the progressive evolu- 
tion of society is harmony and not the struggle for existence.” 


And, yonder, in distant Russia, where he went to assist; 
after forty years of exile, at the birth of a new era, although 
deprived of the immense scientific material accumulated in 
the institutions of London he did not cease living his great 
ideal of “action”, so that it should appear in an ever clearer 
light. He desired the masses to make it theirs and have it 
for a sure guide in the great work of the complete redemp- 
tion of all misery and bondage. 


The last time I saw him at Locarno, a little while before the 
war, I had with him for almost six hours, a passionate dis- 
cussion on the European conflagration that he also had fore- 
seen in a great many of its particulars. It was, however, 
from the moment when I knew him personally for the first 
time that [ formally changed my propaganda, basing it on 
the dilemma: “Either revolution or war”. The revolution at 
[ Page 67 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


all costs, even with the certainty of being vanquished, be- 
cause the worst defeat is that which is suffered without hav- 
ing engaged in battle, or worse still—unbelievable consum- 
mation—in fighting for the enemy. 


Here I do not want to consider our dissention. On leaving, 
he embraced me with more effusion than he had ever shown, 
glad at heart, because of my defence against everything and 
above all, “his” anarchist ideal. 


He was a precursor in the largest sense of the word. Never, 
so much as in his presence, did Ihave the impression of a 
man, who, so much above the meanness and evil of his time, 
should represent the fature citizen of the world with mind 
open to all human knowledge, heart palpitating to all affec- 
tions, thoughts eternally blossoming with new ideas, con- 
science permeated with all the great traditions of the past, 
aspirations of the present, previsions of the future. He was 
able to appear as such, although not forgetting for a single 
moment, the immense existing evil and the great work to 
be accomplished in healing it. 


To Peter Kropotkin we bring here the homage of the un- 
fortunate workers he loved so much and who, from his 
simple, luminous and fervent works, drew high hope, new 
life as combattants and rebels, that opened minds, fortified 
hearts, and strengthened arms. Today, before his grave, we 
repeat one word of love, of memory and of promise: Re- 


volution ! 
L. BERTONI 


*% 


“The more I read, the more I saw that there was before me anew world, unknown to 
me, and totally unknown to the learned makers of sociological theories,— a world that 
I could know only by living in the Workingmen’s Association and by meeting the 
workers in their every-day life.” MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST 

[ Page 68 ] 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


RECOLLECTIONS OF AN OLD COMRADE 


@4|Y first meeting with Kropotkin took place in 
4) Petrograd in 1872, just after the Franco-German 
>) | war and the Paris Commune. The atmosphere 
| 8) of the intellectual Russian centres was, at this 
=| epoch, entirely impregnated with these two 
events. Socia revolutionary ideas and their propaganda 
among great numbers of the population were in the order 
of the day. ... It was of prime importance for the young 
aristocrat and savant prince Respotltn to enter a group of 
socialist-populists formed of students of all origins; this was 
then called the rasnotchintzi (plebs), in some kind of class re- 
pudiation adopted among gentlemen, ecclesiastical students, 
cossacks, peasants, etc. 





We others considered ourselves perfect democrats, com- 
pared with this true aristocrat of the court and Kropotkin 
appeared somewhat ashamed of his birth. He also consid- 
ered us as authorized specialists in the practical work of 
secret propagarda. But, in reality, all amongus were not of 
true democratic birth, as for example, Sophie Perovskaya, 
seventeen years of age, young daughter of a well known 
ezarist minister who, in order to join us, secretly left the 
paternal roof. Moreover, Kropotkin was not at all a neo- 
phyte in the movement of democratic and socialist ideas; 
he was our senior not only by his age, but also through 
his experience of life. Young officer, thirty years of age, 
learned and active, he had already renounced a brilliant 
career at the court, had worked five years in Siberia, finished 
his higher education at the University and made a sojourn 
in Switzerland. 


These five years passed at an administrative employment 
in Siberia, served him, in his own words, as a school of 
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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


life. There he met people of all classes and conditions, and 
he soon learned “the absolute impossibility of doing any- 
thing really useful for the masses through the medium of 
the administrative machine.” Kropoikin became anti-Statist. 
Then he began to comprehend “the intimate forces of social 
life and the creative labor of the unknown masses so rarely 
mentioned in books.” Kropotkin then became a convinced 
populist, and at last, the example of the sectarians who 
had established themselves on the Amur, had placed before 
him the advantages of the communist regime which brought 
him to Communism. Briefly, at this epoch, Kropotkin was 
already a mature man, as to the essential traits of his char- 
acter. On the other hand, at the time of his voyage in Swit- 
zerland in 1871, where he became acquainted with the 
watchmakers of Jura, he had acquired there the compre- 
hension of the foreign international workers’ movement, 
such as enlightened Bakunin. 


I recall the reception given to the communication of our 
friend Dimitri Klemens, that a comrade of the University, 
a pure-blooded aristocrat, Prince K., was interested in the 
same questions as our organization was and he proposed 
K. as a member of our group. 


“What prince have you now?” we responded. “He desires 
perhaps to amuse himself under the mask of democracy; 
later he will become a dignitary and cause us to be hanged.” 
Klemens defended to the best of his ability the proposed 


member and the meeting took place just the same. 


I remember the first interview with Kropotkin at his home, 
which was only one room with a bare ottoman that plainly 
served our host as bed also. There were books upon the 

{ Page 70 ] 


as 4 : 
aD ie bh EY. “eS. 2 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


shelves, the tables and even the chairs and ona large work- 
table a pile of maps. Our conversation turned upon a sub- 
ject of the times: it was a question of knowing where to 
direct our propaganda; to the youthful students or the work- 
ers of the towns. Kropotkin favored an immediate concen- 
tration of all the forces of the organization in the working- 
men’s centres without awaiting the improvement of the rop- 
agandist lists taken among the students, this last then tak- 
ing an important part of our time and efforts. 


After this first meeting with Kropotkin our friendship pro- 
gressed rapidly. In proportion, the divergence of the views of 
Kropotkin and of the majority of our members, particularly 
on political questions, became more and more evident, but 
that did not prevent there being between us confidence and 
reciprocal affection; so much so that when we had to estab- 
lish the plan of our programme, it was to Kropotkin that this 
task was confided although he was then already anarchist- 
communist and we socialist-statists. And he falfilled the 
task to the satisfaction of all. 


In spite ofall his anarchism, Kropotkin was not a destroyer; 
he was a creator in science as well as in the social life of 
his native land and from this source wells up allthe charm- 
ing beauty and force of his soul so rich in nuances. 


N. TCHAIKOVSKY 
a 


“Anarchist Communism sums up all that is most beautiful and most duratle in the 
progress of humanity; the sentiment of justice, the sentiment of liberty, and solidarity 
or community of interest. It guarantees the free evolution, both of the individual and 
of society. Therefore, it will triumph.” 

THE PLACE OF ANARCHISM IN SOCIALISTIC EVOLUTION 
[ Page 71 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


KROPOTKIN THE PROPHET 


==] T is not we Russians who should be grateful to 
<;\ Europe; indeed it is. Europe who howd be 

~ grateful to us. It has been destined that those 
(| who were the most precious treasures of Rus- 
i= =.=) sia, the greatest spirits and greatest characters 
grown on her soil, should be eee to abandon their country 
and live and work outside its pale. Herzen, Bakunin, Lav- 
roff, Plechanoff, Metchnikoff, Kropotkin and so many other 
torch-bearers of science and humanity have bequeathed to 
the West a quantity of precious works in all domains of 
thought and knowledge. Their writings appeared in other 
European languages before appearing in the Russian lan- 
guage. Alas! Russia was the last to read those books of 
genius and even then by stealth and fragmentarily. 








a | x 
rit 
| 
\ 


—_ ae 


It is not only as philosophers, theorists, and savants that 
Europe recognized our great countrymen; she knew them 
also as men of a superior morality, uniting in themselves 
all the accomplishments of mankind. 


Their devotion, their ardor, the vivacity of their thoughts 
infused new life into the congealed veins of the old civiliza- 
tion, were the leaven of new ideas. 


Among these men, banished by the czarist despotism, the 
personality of Peter Kropotkin shines with a particular lus- 
ter: a brilliant proof of the powerful influence that a lumin- 
ous soul can exercise on even prosaic spirits whom it o- 
bliges to accept the extreme idealist perceptions of a man 
with a rare, inward power. | 


en was an anarchist. This Russian prince dered to 
disdain the titles of his ancestors, renounce all the privileges 
of the brilliant career that offered itself to him; he gave up 

[ Page 72 ] 


ma ee 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


his wealth and became a poor man, in order to make known 
to the world the truth which burned in his heart. Full of an 
enthusiastic faith in mankind, he extended to the entire unt- 
verse the qualities of his great soul. He believed all men 
ready for a life of comradeship and fraternity. Love, Science, 
the Arts, Beauty, he desired to see them accessible to all 
without exception. He hated the barriers that closed to. 90% 
of humanity the access to the most beautiful things of life. 
He defended with all his heart’s blood the rights of the dis- 
inherited, and chastised with his powerful eloquence those 
who are responsible for injustice. He hated evil in the name 
of a limitless love of justice and he did not recoil before 
any sacrifice for the sake of justice. For him, the most pain- 
ful sacrifice was the necessity of being separated from his 
own country, his own people. Neither domestic felicity nor 
the respect with which, as a geographic savant, he was sur- 
rounded at the academy of London of which he was a mem- 
ber, nor even the pilgrimages of all the eager and curious 
spirits of the four corners of the world made to him — no- 
thing could ameliorate his sorrow at being separated from 
the Russia his whole soul aspired to serve. It is in a simple 
workingman’s lodging, a room in which four persons found 
difficulty in accomodating themselves, in a small study fur- 
nished with a table of white wood, a wicker arm chair and 
a large drawing-board where he executed the maps of the 
rivers and mountains of our Siberian wastes which he need- 
ed for his confreres at the Academy,—it is there that Peter 
Kropotkin worked in intimate communion with his ideal. 
He always created. He traced for the world pictures of an 
existence always more beautiful, attracting the sympathy, 
the tenderness, the love of all whose souls were good. His 
memoirs, forbidden then, was introduced in Russia at the 
cost of a great many risks and welcomed as a source of 
living truth. His books, such as the “Conquest of Bread”, 
{ Page 73 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


provoked enthusiasm even among the wealthy. They came 
to propose us that we print them in our private printing- 
establishment, offering us considerable sums of money for 
doing so. 


It is not as anarchist, it is not as a member of any party 
that one esteems Kropotkin so highly and loves him so ten- 
derly. He is admired as a prophet whose every word was 
in accord with his pure life. There lies his main force which 
conquered skeptics. 


But now that the Revolution breaks out, overturning the 
ancient regime in Russia, and after a half-century of a 
wandering life full of anguish and ardent aspirations the 
old, brilliant officer of the court returns to his own country, 
a white-headed man, without teeth and with undermined 
health. But his soul always glowed with the same ardent 
love for man, for his dear people, as full of naive faith as 
himself. There only, could Peter Kropotkin see that the king- 
dom of God was not yet realized on earth, that all spirits 
and all hearts are far from being permeated with that light 
illuminating the goals and destinies of man which shone un- 
extinguishable in his pure heart above all the temptations of 
the world. In spite of the unexpected events which afflicted 
him, he lost faith neither in his people nor in the fature of 
humanity. He limited himself to postponing in his imagin- 
ation, the realization of social perfection in the immediate 
future and he continued to think and to write. He showed 
that the idea of anarchism is at the same time that of an 
implacable severity toward himself, nature’s superior being. 


Savant, courageous citizen, man of exceptional purity of 
soul, elegant writer, Peter Kropotkin will always remain one 
of the best examples of these gifts so elevated and so varied 
which are the ornaments of the Russian spirit. 


CATHERINE BRESHOVSKAYA 
[ Page 74 } 








By M. LUCE 








miokin 











» 








PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


A TRULY NOBLE PERSONALITY 





[= —==sjHE impending revolution, however important it 
0) G9 may be in the development of humanity, will 
Kes a "certainly not differ from former revolutions by 

ty) 79) making a sudden leap: nature does not act so. 

pT, ° reese : A 

iisz08—) But it may be said, that judging by a thousand 
indications, a thousand profound indications, the Anarchistic 
society has been for a long while full grown. It shows itself 
wherever free thought disentangles itself from the fetter of 
dogma, wherever the genius of research ignores old formulas, 
wherever human will displays itself in independent action, 
wherever sincere men, rebels against all imposed discipline, 

unite of their own accord for mental improvement, and to 
_ reconquer jointly, without any master, their share of life and 
the full satisfaction of their needs. This is Anarchy, even 
when it is unconsciously so; and it comes to be recognized 
as such more and more. How can it fail to triumph, since 
it has its ideal and the courage of its desires, whilst its crowd 
of adversaries, from this time forth without any belief, bow 


to fate crying: “fin de siecle, fin de siecle!” 














When there are no longer either rich or poor, when the fam- 
ished man no longer looks with envious eyes on him that 
is filled, a natural amity will spring up among men, and the 
religion of solidarity, stifled now-a-days, will take the place 
of this vague religion that traces fleeting images on the mists 
of heaven. 


The revolution holds within it more than it promises. It 
will renew the sources of life, by purifying us from the un- 
clean touch of all politics and by freeing us at last from 
those base preoccupations concerning money, which poison 
[ Page 75 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


our existence. Then will every one be able to follow freely 
his own inclinations; the worker will do the work that best 
suits him; the investigator will study without any mental 
reservations; the artist will no longer prostitute his ideal of 
beauty to win bread, and thenceforth, ftiends all round, we 
shall be able to realize in harmony the great things of which 
the poets have caught but glimpses. 


Then, no doubt, we shall sometimes remember the names 
of those who by their devoted teachings, paid for by exile 
or imprisonment, paved the way for the new society. It is 
of them we think in giving to the world the “Conquest of 
Bread”: they will perhaps feel somewhat strengthened in re- 
ceiving this testimony of common thought through their 
prison bars or in foreign lands. .. . 


Preface to “La Conquete du Pain” (1892). 
wm wm ww 


He is my friend and if I express all the good I think of 
him, it is probable that I should be accused of too-credulous 
faith or of blind partiality. ... Among those who have 
either intimate or distant knowledge of Fis life there is no 
one who should not respect him or appreciate his high order 
of intellect and his heart overflowing with kindness, no one 
who should not recognize him as a truly noble and pure 
personality. After all, has he not his own qualities to thank 
that he is now sundered from the world? His sin consists 
in the fact that he loves the poor and the weak; his crime 
that he pleaded their cause. Public opinion agrees that such 
a man ought to be respected, yet it is not confounded that 
the prison-doors should pitilessly close behind him; so nat- 
ural does it seem that devotion and kindness should be re- 
warded by suffering. 


[ Page 76 ] 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


It is not possible to see Kropotkin in the prison-yard, to 
greet him and not to ask oneself at the same time: “What 
about myself? Why, then, am I free? Is it because I am, 
perhaps, unworthy ?” 


The happiness of humanity does not lie in the election of 
new masters. Therefore, we anarchists, the enemy of Christ- | 
ianity must remind an entire society which pretends to be 


Christian of these words ofa man it made God: “Call no 
man Master, Master!’’ Let each individual be his own 
master. It is in vain that you turn to the seats of officialdom 
or the turbulent platform, it is in vain that you await the 
word of freedom from that quarter; listen rather to the voices 
lower down, even though they issue from between the iron 
bars of a prisoner’s cell. 


Preface to “Paroles d’un Revolte” (1885). ELISEE RECLUS 


ao Bo 


“The Commune of Paris, the child of a period of transition, born beneath the Prussian 
guns, was doomed to perish. But by its eminently popular character it began a new 
series of revolutions, by its ideas it was the forerunner of the social revolution. Its lesson 
has been learnt, and when France once more bristles with communes in revolt, the 
people are not likely to give themselves a government and expec that government to 
initiate revolutionary measures. When they have rid themselves of the parasites who 
devour them, they will take possession of all social wealth to put it in common, according 
to the principles of anarchist-communism. And when they have entirely abolished 
property claims, government and the State, they will form themselves afresh and freely, 
according to the necessities indicated by life itself. Breaking its chains, overthrowing its 
idols, humanity will march onward to a better future, knowing neither masters nor 
slaves, keeping its veneration for the noble martyrs who bought with their blood and 
suffering those first attempts at emancipation, which have enlightened our march toward 
the conquest of liberty.” THE COMMUNE OF PARIS 
[ Page 77 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TREBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


PETER KROPOTKIN AND THE YIDDISH 
WORKERS’ MOVEMENT 


Ee : hoever first visits the narrow and winding ~ 
§"@\ iy) 5) streets and alleys of the Russian immigrants’ 
TPa\ Be wig quarter in the East of London, stretching from 
1) Sal Bishopsgate to Bow and from Bethnel Green to 
4) the London Docks, is strangely impressed by 
the contrast he observes between this and ordinary London 
street life and seems to move in quite another world. He > 
forgets that he is in London and believes he is far away. 
The view of this involved mass of streets where the stranger 
loses his way, of this strange population, these dark symp- 
toms of proletarian misery and etting care, is far from el- 
evating, and the visitor always breathes more freely when he 
turns his back upon this quarter. Very few, however, are 
aware that behind the darkened walls of these time-worn 
houses not only need and misery are living, but that ideal- 
ism is at home there also, hopeful idealism, prepared for 
every sacrifice. I have lived eighteen years in the midst of 
this singular world; accident introduced me there and I felt 
during this time the strongest and most imperishable impres- 
sions of my life. 











Ninety of a hundred of the immigrant quarter’s population 
are Jewish proletarians from Russia and Poland, driven 
from their homes by the ruthless persecution of the old 
czarist system and finding an asylum in this quarter. They 
created new industries, chiefly in the ready-made tailoring 
trade, to eke out a bare living in this foreign country. In 
this remarkable centre a handful of intellectuals about forty 
years ago laid the first foundations of a labor movement, the 
history of which remains to be written and may form one of 
the most interesting chapters of international labor history. 
[ Page 78 ] 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


Thirty-five years ago the “Arbeiter Freund” (“Worker’s 
Friend”) was founded here, the oldest continuous anarchist 
paper besides the Paris “Temps Nouveaux” (1879) and 
“Freedom” (1886). But this is not the place to enter upon 
the story of the Yiddish anarchist movement, rich in inci- 
dents and struggles, since only Peter Kropotkin’s connection 
with this movement will be discussed here. 


To the East End immigrants the name of Kropotkin was a 
kind of symbol; no other had such a great influence upon 
the mental development of the Yiddish workers as he. His 
writings formed the real basis of their socialist education 
and were spread in many thousands of copies. The groups, 
especially the “Worker’s Friend” group, practised sacrifice 
and devotion to render the production of this literature pos- 
sible, to an extent which I never observed elsewhere. Some 
really gave the last they had; there wasa rivalry in sacrifice 
and solidarity. None wanted to stand back. Young women 
and girls earning with pains their 10 or 12 shillings a week 
in the infamous sweated trades of the East End, re ularly 
gave their share, took it from their last money, in nas not 
to be behind their male comrades. In this way the “Work- 
er’s Friend” group alone, within not quite ten years edited 
nearly a half million of books and pamphlets, among them 
numerous works of some hundreds of pages, like Kropot- 
kin’s “Words of a Rebel”, and “Conquest of Bread”, Louise 
Michel’s “Memoirs”, Grave’s “Moribund Society” and 


several others. 


London was, so to speak, the school where the newly ar- 
rived from Russia and Poland drifting continuously to Eng- 
land were introduced to the new ideas; from here propaganda 
spread over many countries. Want of work, material priva- 
_ tions and often that restless migratory impulse proper to 
many Jewish proletarians, led hundreds of good comrades 
[ Page 79 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


from London to France, Belgium, Germany, Egypt, South 
Africa, Australia and to the North and South of America; 
most of whom maintained their contact with the London 
movement and worked untiringly in their new spheres of 
life, until yonder also groups for anarchist agitation among 
Yiddish immigrants were formed. They did not forget the 
financial support of the London mother movement to render 
possible the publication of the paper and that of further 


anarchist literature. 


But Kropotkin not only influenced this movement by his 
writings, he was also in very intimate personal contact with 
it and took a lively interest in all its struggles and under- 
takings. After coming to England in 1886 when released 
from the prison of Clairvaux he often visited the Berner 
Street Club, the then intellectual centre of the London 
Yiddish labor movement. In later years when chronic heart 
disease made his participation in public meetings always 
more difficult or impossible, his East End visits became rarer, 
but the intellectual contact remained always and took again 
quite regular forms when the anarchist movement in Russia 
began to take greater development. During the first years 
of the present century many comrades returned from London 
to Russia where they propagated the anarchist ideas in 
secret groups. Many a one died on the gallows and many 
were buried for long years in the prisons of Russia and 
Siberia. Secret means of communication between London 
and Russia were created and kept up by correspondence 
and secret emissaries. A very great quantity of Russian and 
Yiddish literature was smuggled from London into Russia 
to help the comrades there at their ceaseless task. Later on: 
the paper “Chleb i Volya” (Bread and Freedom) was founded 
and edited by Kropotkin. 


In England itself, the Yiddish movement had a great 
[ Page 80 ]} 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


rise, especially before and after the Russian Revolution of 
1905. Trade Unions in which the anarchists unceasingly 
took part, flourished, great strike movements stirred up the 
immigrants’ quarter to the utmost, and the anarchist move- 
ment took proportions as never before. At that time the 
“old man”, as the Yiddish workers universally called him, 
came oftener to the East End and spoke even at meetings, 
whilst strictly forbidden to do so by medical orders. I re- 
member especially a meeting held at our club in Jubilee 
Street in December 1905 on the anniversary day of the 
Dekabrists revolt (1825). Kropotkin was one of the speakers. 
To prevent overcrowding, the meeting was not publicly an- 
nounced, since Mme. Kropotkin urgently appealed to us to 
take care of the “old man”. Nevertheless, the news spread 
like lightning, and in the evening the great hall and the gal- 
lery were overcrowded, and hundreds could not be admitted 
and had to turn back. His voice faltered slightly at the 
beginning of his speech. An invisible charm seemed to issue 
from this man and enter into the inmost hearts of the audi- 
ence. I had heard him speak hundreds of times, but only 
once before this had I noticed such a tremendous impres- 
sion as this evening. The “old man” was no orator of 
rhetorical gifts, sometimes even, his words were uttered with 
some hesitation, but the manner of his speaking, this un- 
dertone of deepest conviction underlying each word pene- 
trated the minds of the audience with elementary force and 
put them completely under his spell. But Kropotkin also 
was mightily impressed by this audience which listened to 
his words with breathless attention and when he had re- 
turned home, he had a grave attack of heart-disease which 
put his life in danger and tied him down for some time to 


his sick-bed. 


I had a similar impression at a great demonstration in Hyde 
[ Page 81 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


Park held in protest against the massacre of the Jewish inhab- 
itants of Kishineff instigated by the czar’s government. The 
inhuman cruelties of this gruesome tragedy created the great- 
est excitement in the East End immigrant quarter. The organ- 
ization of all shades of opinion and parties met in confer- 
ence which led to the Hyde Park meeting. Many thousands 
of Yiddish workers marched from Mile End Gate to the 
Park, one of the strangest demonstrations which London 
ever saw. Many prominent men of all parties addressed the 
masses gathered round their platform raising a just protest, 
in vehement words against the atrocious policy of ond of 
Plehve’s system. When Kropotkin arrived at the Park en- 
trance, a large crowd of Yiddish workers received him 
enthusiastically, took the dear “old man” in their midst and 
led him to the meeting place. Here he was carefully lifted 
above the heads of the crowd up to the car which served as 
a platform. When he began to speak I also noticed that 
vibration of his voice which always madea peculiar impres- 
sion upon me. By and by his voice became stronger and 
his pauses more regular. He was seized with strong feelin 

and this was communicated to the thousands who pb 
with bated breath and followed his words with silent vener- 
ation. His speech was a flaming accusation of the bloody 
regime of the Russian henchmen. Every word came from 
the depths of his heart and had the pressure of a hundred- 
weight. The expression of mildness which made his face so 
very attractive, had quite left it, his eyes were flaming and 
the gray beard trembled violently as if swayed by the tre- 
mendous impetus of this sweeping accusation. Every sentence 
was inspired by the spirit of deepest truth and met an im- 
pressive echo in the hearts of the audience under his spell. 
When he had finished, his face was unusually pale and his 


entire body trembled with inward excitement. I am convinced 


[ Page 82 ] 





DRAWING 





BY DELANNOY 


aia, 











PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


that the strong impression of his words on that occasion 
remains unforgotten by all those who have heard him. 


Kropotkin also took a lively interest in the great Yiddish 
labor struggles. In 1911 the great tailors’ strike began on 
the East End, first as a mere strike of solidarity to help the 
West End tailors and gradually growing to be a gigantic 
struggle against the hellish sweating system which was actu- 
ally crushed by it. I visited Kropotkin soon after the end of 
this strike; he had followed its phases with the greatest at- 
tention. I acquainted him with all the details in which I had 
had an active part from beginning to end. I told him the 
situation at the beginning of the strike. The different organ- 
izations then had almost no funds at hand, but it was neces- 
sary to keep faith with the fighting English and German 
comrades of the West End and wavering was out of place. 
It was a famine strike in the worst sense of the word, for 
even the splendid solidarity of the other Yiddish trades could 
not guarantee even a bare pittance to the strikers and their 
families. From ten to twelve thousand workers were out on 
strike and hardly four or five shillings a week could be 
given as strike pay. Feverish activity set in on the East End 
to alleviate the misery in some degree. Community kitchens 
were created in several of the workers’ clubs, the Yiddish 
bakers’ trade union made bread for the strikers, the cigar- 
makers’ union distributed cigarettes to the strike pickets who 
had also to be on the look-out all the night through, all 
Yiddish trade-unions raised special levies which were gladly 
paid by the members. All means of direct action were used 
in this struggle and many workers were arrested and sent 
to prison. The struggle lasted for six weeks when that mem- 
orable midnight meeting which was to decide on the continua- 
tion of the strike was held at the Pavilion Theatre. The theatre 
was crowded and many hundreds who could not be admit- 
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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


ted stood waiting outside. Many strikers had brought their 
wives with them who nearly all had stood up splendidly during 
these hard times. I shall never forget this picture, the mon- 
ster meeting at midnight with all these pale faces marked by 
toil and care. When at last the audience was asked to decide 
whether the strike should come to an end and the moderate 
concessions of the employers remain all that resulted from 
it, a storm swept the audience and a powerful No! No! No! 
sounded all over the wide room. They did not want to have 
undergone all this sacrifice for no purpose. This broke the 
spell. The Masters’ Association split and the struggle ended 
ina complete victory for the workers. 


I told this to the “old man” who listened attentively and 
took many notes. When I told him. further that the same 
Yiddish workers, quite exhausted by this strenuous strug- 
gle, had at once undertaken a new act of . solidarity by board- 
ing some hundreds of children of the striking dockers in 
their families, to help the English comrades in their hard 
struggle against Lord Davenport, Kropotkin’s eyes became 
moist and he pressed my hand in silence. “This is a good 
contribution to the chapter on mutual aid,” I said. —“Cer- 
tainly, certainly,” he replied with emotion, “As long as such 
forces operate within the masses there is no reason to de- 
spair of the future.” 


I could tell many interesting episodes to confirm the intim- 
ate relations between Kropotkin and the Yiddish workers’ 
movement, but there is no room and these few examples 
may be sufficient, I believe. When on the occasion of his 
seventieth birthday, a splendid meeting was held at the 
Pavilion Theatre (East End), addressed by socialists and 
radicals of all shades, Bernard Shaw in his address made 
the significant remark: “I am persuaded that of all the man- 
ifestations of these days to express love and sympathy to 


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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


him, Kropotkin will be touched by none so deeply and 


-moved so joyfully, as by this greeting of the proletarians 
of the East End.” é : e E 


I know not whether Shaw knew of the intimate relations 
which always existed between Kropotkin and the Yiddish 
workers’ movement, but in any case he hit upon the simple 
truth by his observation. 


Berlin, October 1921. RUDOLF ROCKER 


uO 


“The natural and social calamities pass away. Whole populations are periodically re- 
duced to misery or starvation; the very springs of life are crushed out of millions of 
men, reduced to city pauperism; the understanding and the feelings of the millions are 
vitiated by teachings worked out in the interest of the few. All this is certainly a 
part of our existence. But the nucleus of mutual-support institutions, habits, and cus- 
toms remains alive with the millions; it keeps them together; and they prefer to cling 
to their customs, beliefs, and traditions, rather than to accept the teachings of a 
war of each against all, which are offered to them under the title of science, but are no 
science at all.” MUTUAL AID 


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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


A GREAT HEART 


Sea |HEN a friend, a beloved friend, is interred, one 
aca IE wishes to preserve silence, to think only of that 


DI es and to be sorrowful because of it. It is dif- 





7, ip \ficult to collect one’s thoughts and to give them 
is ON |\proper form. These thoughts do not shape 
themselves of their own accord. 
It seems to me that the thing which most attracted all hearts 
to Peter Alexeyevitch was his profound, blessed faith in the 
masses of countless millions of beings, in the life which cre- 
ated within them the sentiment of justice, in ther capacity 
for organizing themselves and working upon the bases of 
solidarity, of fraternity,as soon as the freedom for doing so 
was granted them, and as soon as they were delivered foe. 
all violence and all bondage. 
All the works of Kropotkin and his relations toward the 
people are permeated with this faith in mankind. One al- 
ways feels in them the warmth of a great heart. 
It happens that authors do not reveal themselves in their 
works. It happens that what is inscribed does not corres- 
pond to the real image of the author, or, indeed, that the 
work exposes that part of the author’s personality which is 
hidden and which ordinarily escapes the eye. 
But Peter Alexeyevitch is perfectly clear, transparent in his 
books as in his discourse, and in both he is the same, 
brilliant messenger of a better future for humanity. 
The union of the author and the man is complete in him. 
Truly all his life, in big things as in small, even to the pet- 
tiest daily occurrences, is pure and in accord with his revo- 
lutionary ideas and social ideals. Is it at all to be wondered 
atif his loss that has surprised us, afflicts us so profoundly 
that we desire to keep silent and plunge ourselves in our 


9 
SOrrow : VERA FIGNER 
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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


“NO JUSTICE WITHOUT EQUALITY” 


= ee |GREAT many people have evinced surprise that 
“<5 Kropothin should have remained aloof from 
KG ‘~) current events for three years, — an aloofness 





} 
¥ | 
We y that characterized the last years of his life. Its 
“cause Is very simple. 


He was a revolutionist above all; dying, he firmly believed 
in the same ideals of combat that he followed all his life; he 
believed that revolution raised beacon-lights which ought to — 
illumine humanity on its way. He learned that errors are 
inevitable in the moments of the creation of a new life and 
that creators must work in narrow camps surrounded by 
enemies with traitors and hinderers within their very walls. 


But what principally caused Kropotkin to refrain from crit- 
icising the present state of affairs in Russia could be found 
in the words of a member of the communist party of Russia, 
a few days ago, while they were choosing the site of my 
father’s grave. These words were: “He marched onward in 
advance of us all; and through our faults we will arrive at 
last to that absence of- power which is the ideal.” 


Never yet was there in the history of the civilized world so 
many men, who, at the cost of errors and suffering have 
learned all the truth of the anarchist ideal. More than ever is 
their number legion in Russia... All those who think honestly, 
all those who have graduated from the dolorous school of 
failure and disappointment, all those who have learned that 
everything Shick. is beautiful in theory does not necessarily 
produce beautiful results in life, those only, precisely at 
this moment in which errors are so evident, must compre- 
hend that the man who loyally and passionately marches 
toward the final ideal cannot tolerate all the obstacles along 
the road. Upon the highway of life where the caravans jog 


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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS . 


along, the couriers gallop. The caravans halt provisionally 
pitching their tents and every new camp, although an im- 
provement on the one preceding it still resembles it to a 
great degree. And the couriers gallop in advance toward the 
mountain upon which must arise not merely a provisionary 
construction, a temporary tent along the road, but that eter- 
nal and marvellous city which always lures us forward. 


As Peter Kropotkin stated in his last work on ethics: “There 
is no justice without equality and no morality without jus- 
tice.” We have the quintessence of his life in those few 
words, the synthesis of his soul and mind. 


In that work may also be found the battle-cry of the revo- 
lutionist, his love of mankind, the profound philosophy of 
his soul in all its crystalline purity. But it is foolish fo con- 
sider Kropotkin solely as a philosopher, a savant, or Tols- 
toyan. He believed in equality above everything else. For 
him, justice without equality could not exist. But justice 
alone is a dead thing when unillumined by that profound 
love of humanity which was his most shining and charac- 
teristic trait. He loved mankind with that love which is 
peculiar to the Russian people,—as he himself always said 
—a compassionate love. 


He was a revolutionist and not only a Russian revolution- 
ist. In his letters to the comrades and workers of western 
Europe he always urged them forward. He passionately 
awaited the dawn of revolution in all lands. He awaited it 
not only as the salvation of his own country, but as the 
glorious sunlight of | equality that should illumine at last the 
workers of the whole world. 


Moscow, February 11, 1921. ALEXANDRA PETROVNA KROPOTKIN 


@ 
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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


AN AFTERNOON WITH KROPOTKIN 


Se HEN I went to Europe, in 1912, I supposed | 
‘@\ e-/f should be moved most by the traditional sights 

M 4 of | stately structures and historic monuments, by 
“4 this Forum where Caesar fell, and this Trium- 
| phal Arch whose silent oratory still echoed the 
| apoleon. I saw many countries, many types 
and classes, and many men; but I saw only one man. My 
keenest memory of Europe now is the afternoon I spent 


with Peter Kropotkin. 


I went out to Brighton to see him, and found him in avery 
modest apartment, whose largest room was a library. The 
walls were hidden by rows of books from floor to ceiling 
everywhere, books in all languages and on all subjects. I 
was fingering a set of Ferrer’s writings, in Spanish, when 
Kropotkin came into the room. His portraits had not belied 
him in his main features: here were the broad round face, 
the almost hairless crown, and the immense patriarchal 
beard. But the pictures had not conveyed the startling short- 
ness of the man — there was here hardly enough body to 
hold up the massive head. But more, the pictures had 
failed to catch the brilliance, the vivacity and kindliness of 
the eyes; you felt at once that this man was both a philos- 
opher and a saint. 







He was interested to hear about the Ferrer School of New 
York (then at East Twelfth Street); he praised Ferrer highly, 
and urged me to learn Spanish if only to translate the works 
of the great educator. We spoke of his own books; I com- 
a on their range of | subject, but expressed a preference 
for “Mutual Aid”; if I remember rightly, he agreed with 
me. In the preface to “Memoirs of a Revolutionist” he had 
expressed his feelings that so long as the exploitation of 
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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


man by man continued, a man should be a revolutionist 
first and a scientist afterward; but it appeared, nevertheless, 
that he attached more value to his contributions to geog- 
raphy, geology and biology than to such works of propa- 
ganda as “The Conquest of Bread”. These exhortative 
works were, after all, highly theoretical; they dealt with 
a problematical future, and presumed social and economic 
developments of: considerable scope; but his work in science 
had been practical and decisive; it had checked the current 
of political Darwinism, had undermined the supposed bio- 
logical case for privilege and oligarchy and had provided an 
excellent scientific basis for a program of democracy and 
co-operation. His mental preoccupations were now (it was 
his seventieth year) almost exclusively scientific; he dis- 
coursed eagerly on questions of genetics, expressed a dis- 
trust of eugenics, and warmly defended Lamark’s view as 
against Weismann’s view o heredity. 
He was engaged, he said, in bringing together a great welter 
of material on morality; he hoped within a few years to 
ublish a volume of ethics which would be the magnum opus 
of his life. I wonder what has happened to the MS. which 
he prepared on this subject? Surely if any man had a right 
to talk on the good life it was this Russian prince who came 
down from the heaven of | privilege and leisure to become a 
man and suffer for all men. When one thinks of the 
Niagara of cant that has poured from well-paid pens on the 
subject of morality, one thirsts for the cleansing currents of 
Kropotkin’s thought. . . . 
When we parted he put his arm around me in fatherly 
fashion and saleieied me with messages of regard to his 
friends in America. I parted from him as I used in early 
days to go out from eee tense and awed with a sense 
of something whole and priceless in this experience. I have 


never met a finer man. WILL DURANT 
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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


A VISIT TO KROPOTKIN IN 1905. 


[Dr Brupbacher, here describes his own mental evolution, that of a young Swiss 
intellectual with strong social feelings and a desire for practical action. In 
Zurich at least, as a Swiss citizen, he had free scope for theoretical and practical 
studies; his experience made him approach Kropotkin’s ideas without quite falling 
under his spell. Later he examined the history of the International and wrote 
“Marx und Bakunin” (Munchen, 1913,) 202 pp.] 


| EELING stifled by mouldering decaying bourgeois- 
lism I became an oppositional individualist in 
: the sense of Max Stirner. Thence I arrived at 
* 9 Marx, because his optimism based on social 
een? || fatalism pronounced the doom of bourgeofsism 
without requiring an optimistic conception of man. Ihad read 
in the mean time Kropotkin’s “Conquest of Bread” and his 
“Memoirs” without receiving a deeper impression from them, 
because my pessimism acquired by bourgeois surroundings 
made Kropotkin’s optimistic conception of human nature in- 
accessible to me. So I became a social democrat; I entered 
the movement as a working medical man, a propagandist 
and elected municipal representative. I witnessed the in- 
capability of social democratic politics, the sacrifices of many 
workers for their class and became aware of the necessity 
of men of initiative and of action. I met anarchists and read 
Kropotkin’s “Mutual Aid” and “Fields, Factories and Work- 
shops”. This time I was more receptive for an optimistic 
evaluation of men and was struck by the individual features 
of production. Kropotkin’s description of Jersey agriculture 
fascinated me and I visited the island. From mutual friends 
I heard that Kropotkin in that summer of 1905 stayed 
in Brittany and I went to see him there; he struck me as 
a gentleman of some sixty years of age of almost retiring 
disposition. 
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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


I began by asking his opinion of municipal socialism, as 
preconized by social democrats. He thought that only the 
capitalists, fee all the landlords, profited by it. 


Kropotkin spoke with great enthusiasm on French revolu- 
tionary syndicalism in which he saw the resuscitation of the 
left wing of the old International. He disagreed only with the 
antipatriotic antimilitarism of syndicalists, since he consid- 
ered it worth while to defend republican France against the 
German junkers. ' 


Being little informed at that time on the subject of the first 
International, I inquired from which sources it could be best 
studied. Upon this Kropotkin pointed to an elderly, rather a- 
gile gentleman who was present, whose name I had not caught 
before—it was James Guillaume. “My friend,” said Kropot- 
kin, “has just got the proofs of the first volume of the ‘In- 
ternational’,” upon which Guillaume protested that he did 
not write the history of the society, but only his personal 
recollections: 2 


1 Kropotkin’s standpoint on this subject was made public a short time later by 
an article in “Le Temps” (Paris, Oct. 19, 1905,) corrected by Kropotkin’s letter of Oct. 
21, (ib Oct. 31); see also “Les Temps Nouveaux”, Oct. 28: ‘Antimilitarisme et Revo- 
lution’; Charles Albert’s article (ib., Nov. 11, 18) and Amedee Dunois (ib. Dec. 16.) 


2 This book “L’Internationale. Documents et Souvenirs” (1864-1878,) 4 vols. of over 
1309 pp. was published between Nov. 1905 and March 1910. It is indeed for those who 
cannot refer to the very scarce and scattered original publications, the best work on this 
complicated subject and it records also much of Kropotkin’s early doings in Switzerland 
until 1877. J. Guillaume, born 1844, died 1917; he was the most active Swiss Inter- 
nationalist until 1878, and for a number of years Bakunin’s nearest comrade; between 
1878 and 1993 he worked hard in the field of advanced pedagogic literature and pub- 
lished the educational documents of the French Revolution from public records. In 
1903 he re-entered the labor movement by giving many years of disinterested help to 
French and Swiss revolutionary syndicalism, being an invaluable link between the mod- 
ern movements and their forerunners forty years ago. Kropotkin and Guillaume were 
equally delighted to renew their early intimacy and it was equally interesting to listen 
to either of them when they told of these happy days in Britanny or of similar visits 
in Paris. 

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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


Kropotkin spoke in harsh terms of Marx, and still more 
harshly of Engels; Engels had exercised the worst possible 


influence upon Marx in his opinion. 3 


After this we spoke of “Mutual Aid”. I told him that his 
book had induced me to examine the reasons of the decay 
of the Swiss allmend (pastures held in common by the in- 
habitants of Swiss Alpine villages). I attributed this decay 
not only to the use of force but also to the fact that those 
who possessed little or no cattle, by and by lost their inter- 
est in the common pasture and let those who had much 
cattle dispose of it. Kropotkin did not like to hear this, 
still he expressed great interest in the matter and used 
material which I sent him for the appendix of the French 
edition of his book. + 


His conversation showed warm interest and natural exu- 
berant charm, suddenly interrupted by dire wrath against 
Marxists and Russian Social Revolutionists. This wrath 
easily propelled him to make unjust remarks. But it was 
not repulsive and I liked it rather, want of justice and all. 
It was the want of justice of a living man who hates and 
loves with equal warmth. 


In the evening, after our talk, Guillaume played dances 
on the piano and Kropotkin danced with the young girls 
and did all sorts of nonsense and playful tricks. In the 


3 Itis well known upon what material Kropotkin’s opinion was based; J. Guil- 
laume’s book just mentioned and V. Tcherkesoff’s writings (mostly published in “Les 
Temps Nouveaux” and “Freedom”) contain these early materials, to which the fatal 
influence of real and distorted Marxism on the Russian movement at all times must be 
added. It is not intended to reduce the weight of these charges, only it might be re- 
membered that the correspondence between Marx and Engels had not been published 
then. These four large volumes, issued not very long before the war, contain such 
abundant intimate material on the real relations between Marx and Engels that opin- 
ions expressed before cannot be considered definite. 


4 “L’Entr’aide, un facteur d’evolution”. (Paris, 1906,) translated by L. Breal. 


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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


meanwhile the conversation mainly turned upon Russia 
where he intended to go to live whenever possible. 5 


I have never seen him since then, but had someletters from 
him. One of these refers to my intended exclusion from the 
Swiss Social Democratic party for holding anarchist opin- 
ions. I opposed this exclusion on the ground of my not be- 
ing opposed in principle to parliamentary action, and I con- 
sidered that the ideas of direct action, of the general strike, of 
antimilitarism, and of the abolition of the State were not in 
opposition to the social democratic movement. I wrote a 
series of articles under the title “Soctal Democrat and Anar- 
chist” to which Kropotkin refers in his letter in which he says: 


“To tell the truth I don’t believe that you are right. You would 
be right in saying “Socialist and Anarchist’, but not ‘Social 
Democrat and Anarchist”. For when Marx and Engels wrote the 
passages which you quote, they were not yet social democrats, nor 
did anarchists exist at that time as a definite section. Marx, Eng- 
els, Lavroff © at that time were still under the influence of the 
ideas defended by Déjacque, Stirner, etc. These ideas are compat- 
ible with socialism which, as you perhaps are aware of, was also 
Merlino’s standpoint. 7 


But social democracy and anarchism are absolute opposites, one 
excluding the other, and frankly speaking, I regret your attempt 
to mix them up. 


Social democratism, plainly spoken, means the conquest of power 
within the present State, in order to realize socialism by this power, 


5 At that time the Russian movement of 1905 was well under way, but the events of 
October, followed up some time later by an amnesty, had not yet taken place. After 
October Kropotkin was indeed eager to go to Russia where much work to make the 
victory won in October a permanent and real one remained to be done. When he came 
to London, from Bromley, to work in the British Museum, about November, he would 
tell me once or twice that he had spent some leisure hours in a shooting gallery to get 
some rifle practice and was satisfied to note that he could still hit his mark. “It may be 

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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


to abolish class distinctions and thus to bring about a change which 
would make the State unnecessary. 


But anarchism says: it is a contradiction to work for conquering 
power within the present State for the purpose of abolishing this 
State. We must work from now on to hinder or diminish the in- 
crease of the State, the belief in the State, and all authority of 
the State, in whatever direction we can, and we must right now 
elaborate those forms of life which render unnecessary the State 
and the capitalist. 

These two standpoints are quite antagonistic and render in every 
way, in every single case co-operation impossible. 

Therefore the Social Democrats ate in my opinion quite right 
when they exclude an anarchist from their party. 


We are not a party and therefore we need not exclude anyone, 
All we can say is that we cannot co-operate with people of such 
tendencies.” 8 


useful and it might come to this,” he would say. There was much discussion whether the 
events in Russia were like 1789 or only like 1848 and while some may have encouraged 
him to go to Russia, others warned him. After the disastrous defeat of the revolution 
in Moscow, at Christmas 1905, he could only have gone to his ruin, if he had gone. 
Georg Brandes told some details of these days which I only know as summed up in 
Albert Jensen’s “Peter Kropotkin” (Stockholm, 1921), p. 25-26. 


6 A long essay by Peter Lavroff, “The Statist Element in Future Society” (London, 
Vpered, 1876, VIII, 199 pp.; in Russian) was here before Kropotkin’s mind. 


7 It would be too long to try to explain what made Kropotkin mention Joseph De- 
Jacque, a little off-hand. — Dr. F. S. Merlino’s pamphlet “Necessite et Bases d’une 
entente” (Brussels, May 1892, 32 pp.) is still remembered. 


8 The documents referring to Dr. Brupbacher’s case (January to November 1913) and 
his theoretical arguments etc., were published as a supplement to the Zurich socialist 
paper “Volksrecht” of December 6, 1913. By 196 against 43 votes, the Zurich society 
“Eintracht” refused to exclude him. I have not in mind the arguments then used, but I 
think that the claim can be based on the claim which all social democrats still uphold: 
that they are socialists. The same claim is rightly made by all anarchists, the Tucker- 
Mackay nuance of individualists excepted. The International founded 1864 until 1869 
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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


I wrote these pages to show Kropotkin’ s effect upon us here 
who were never quite in the van of his ideas. They leave 
much unsaid. With us in Switzerland, in the social democratic, 
at present also in the bolshevist-communist movement, 
Kropotkin is one of the most read and beloved of authors. 
Revolutionists of every description all took something of 
the spirit of Kropotkin. His books are like living beings. 
One fondles them, loves them and regrets that there are so 


few of them. 


Zurich, Switzerland, July 1921. FRITZ BRUPBACHER 


(Congress held at Basel) held socialists of all shades of opinions, Marxists, collectivist- 
anarchists, Proudhonians, co-operators, etc., and the bigoted fanaticism of Marx in- 
troducing social democratic tenets as an obligatory, leading doctrine, led from 1871 on- 
ward to the Anarchist revolt. Again when in 1889 and after, international socialist con- 
gresses met again, anarchists went there as socialists and were only excluded finally in 
1896 (London) by dispositions of odious narrowness which called but for scorn and 
contempt. Dr. Brupbacher, continued to fight, challenging the Zurich society to 
which he had belonged for many years, not to exclude him, since they continued to 
consider themselves socialists and so did he, having forefeited none 
of his socialism by accepting anarchist and syndicalist ideas — and by 195 against 43 
the members upheld his standpoint. I do not know whether the matter ended there. 
M. N. 


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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


A FEW RECOLLECTIONS 


= | OME days after the banquet, celebrating the 70th 
Coe 2 ae of Kropotkin, I saw Pierre Martin who 


PSN ~ said to me: “Have you heard? He has spoken 


Nae E4!to us again of that.” This time he felt once more 
“32 Le ithe need of speaking of his love for France. 





The war broke out, he heeded his sentiment. 


His admiration for the French Revolution, the fear he félt of 
Teutonic centralization as mistress cf the world, werea night- 
mare to him and seemed to him a peril for the Federalist 
spirit of the Latin countries. 


For several years his upright nature had taken into account 
that anti-statism is above wars of secret capitalism under 
cover of nationality. And if we had had the happiness 
of seeing him these last days, he would surely have con- 
fessed his error of 1914, for he was too as a lover of 


truth not to speak frankly. 


Going out of the British Museum when he went home for 
his coffee, playing with the children, I remember that he 
said to them: “You are mistaken; nobody is perfect and I 
also often commit errors.” Heretofore we lived in Paris 
where we underwent police perquisitions for the most trivial 
causes, because we were known for our ideas as well as be- 
cause in 1888 I had founded a Syndicate that was the first 
to preconize the general strike, and also because in 1890 I 
was the founder of the journal “Le Pot a Colle”. 


It is known that Ravachol was arrested on the accusation 
of the brother-in-law of Viry, restaurateur of the boulevard 
Magenta. Some months later the restaurant was dynamited. 
Our comrade Meunier was suspected of this deed and he 
departed for London: arrested there, the French government 
{ Paze 97 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


demanded his extradition. It was our duty to testify in favor 


of Meunier. The English judges granted the extradition. 


In Paris during this time, the police sought to inculpate me 
in the trial of the Thirty. I was informed of it by M. Desplat, 
the lawyer of Meunier who wrote me to remain at London, 
that in Paris, the testimony of my wife was sufficient. 


This explains our sojourn at London with my wife, my 
daughter Louise and little Gaston Merigeau, five years old, 
whom we adopted while his father, the victim of a police 
machination, served four years of prison at Poissy. 


Whilst my daughter questioned him, the little Gaston pulled 
his long beard; he defended himself by blowing a whiff of 
cigarette smoke at him, confessing to them his great fault 
of smoking; then, the children preventing him from rolling 
his cigarettes, he said laughing: “Logic comes from below.” 
Continuing to smoke he added: “Strength surpasses reason.” 


My memory recurs to those intimate little reunions to which 
came Domela Nieuwenhuis, Landauer, Malatesta, Tcher- 
kesoff, Louise Michel, Elisee Reclus; the latter, keen and 
precise, pointing an error out to him, Pierre replied: “Yes, I 
am wrong. Ah! it is because Elisee yielded no concession — 
to the State in all it is possible to do.” : 


One felt alive in listening to the discussions of all those up- 
right souls. I saw these human beingsas great; their general 
knowledge overawed me, I felt the necessity of always 
learning, in order to be enabled like they were, to expose 
the Truth with ease. 


Certainly the negation of authority and its unfortunate ac- 
tion was of all time; Rabelais exalted it, Diderot affirmed it; 
in these epochs of divine right they were audacious precur- 
sors. 

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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


Later, Proudhon undermined the state from its very found- 
ations, as also property and the representative system. It 
was Bakunin particularly who interposed a barrier against 
authoritary centralism and the fatalism of Karl Marx; it was 
free and autonomous federation, the antithesis of Statism. 


It is necessary to come to Kropotkin in order to have a co- 
hesive concretion in the negation of property and the State. 


With an expert hand he gave us the structure of anarchist- 
communism as the natural philosophy in the life of a society 
without gods and without masters. 


He constructed the model of it, foresaw all parts of the 
edifice. Forty years later he said tous: “Here are the plans 
of the work !” 


He had put his i ascider - the wheel since 1877, in Switzer- 
land with Reclus. 


I saw him again in ’79 or ’80 (I have not the notes) in the 
group of la rue Pascal. I was in a corner, unknown or al- 
most unknown, he was conversing with us of anarchy. ... 
Fiction was dead. His analysis had given us the real thing. 


Just at present I have not the dates and documents that 
would aid me in narrating the salient acts of this first Par- 
isian nucleus from which issued the anarchist movement 
that was extended at first to France in the region of the 
Rhone in order to penetrate from there into Italy, Switzer- 
land, Spain, and then the entire world. 


Without pause, incessantly, Pierre expounded the society 
of tomorrow. His first preliminary book, “Les Paroles d’un 
Revolte”, is a master-piece for humanity. 


In Rivoli hall I saw him again in 1886, speaking to a new 
public, a mixture of workers bourgeois, students and novices. 
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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


His positive and generous words had gained the enthusiasm 
of the crowd. The rulers were afraid and wanted to expel 
him. Kropotkin anticipated them and went to London. A 
few years later, returning to France, the authorities at Dieppe 
prevented him from going ashore by notifying him of his 


expulsion. 


In ’94 I found him again at London; He whose immense 
fortune had been confiscated by the czar, was contributing 
to scientific journals in order to gain a livelihood. 


The old and first propagandists of anarchy were his disciples 


and his scholars. He was the first educator. 


He is the founder of the generous and grand Idea that had 
its martyrs who knew how to go to prison and die with their 
heads unbowed. 


The new generation who will annihilate evil and its horrors 
is impregnated with anarchist communism. Only the direct- 
ing hand was necessary to show that it is possible. 


Peter Kropotkin ! In you we salute the prophet of great 


humanity ! 
L. GUERINEAU 
oF oa 


“Such is the regular life of the prison, a life running for years without the least modifi- 
cation, and which acts depressingly on man by its monotony and its want of impressions; 
a life which a man can endure for years, but which he cannot endure—if he has no aim 
beyond this life itself—without being depressed and reduced to the state of a machine 
which obeys but has no will of its own; a life which results in an atrophy of the best 
qualities of man, and a development of the worst of them, and, if much prolonged, 


renders him quite unfit to live afterwards in a society of free fellow-creatures. ...” 


“The real cause of recidivism lies in the perversion due to such infection-nests as 
the Lyons prison is. I suppose that to lock up hundreds of boys in such infection-nests 
is surely to commit a crime much worse than any of those committed by any of the 
convicts themselves.” 

IN RUSSIAN AND FRENCH PRISONS 


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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


COMRADE KROPOTKIN 


me T must be nearly thirty years ago, and the scene 
(25) was a cellar in Windmill Street, off Tottenham 
Ueee|Court Road. The lower part of the house was 
See then used as an Anarchist club— “The Auto- 
ee )nomy”, I think it was called—and there were a 
good many of that unpolitical creed at that time in the neigh- 
borhood, for they had a kind of school in Fitzroy Street near 
by, where I gave occasional instruction to the little Anar- 
chists in the elements of orderly drill — a difficult task. 
Among comfortable people there was the same kind of panic 
about Anarchists as there is now about Bolsheviks, though 
there is little resemblance between the two parties, except 
that Anarchism also terrified Capital and was vaguely con- 
nected with Russia. Every now and then the panic was stim- 
ulated by an enlivening scare — a man found shattered by 
his own bomb in a park, or the discovery of a bomb factory 
in Staffordshire. The Government was supposed to have al- 
lured certain worms crawling towards hell to act as provoca- 
tive agents, and from my subsequent knowledge of Govern- 
ments I think that was very likely true. Anyhow, like every 
dangerous cause, Anarchist Communism had won enthusi- 
astic adherents, and they met in a cellar in Windmill Street. 





Comrade Peter Kropotkin was then about fifty, but he looked 
more. He was already bald. His face was battered and 
crinkled into a kind of softness, perhaps owing to loss of 
teeth through prison scurvy. His unrestrained and bushy 
beard was already touched with the white that soon overcame 
its reddish brown. But eternal youth diffused his speech and 
stature. His mind was always going full gallop, like a horse 
that sometimes stumbles in its eagerness. Behind his spec- 
{ Page 101 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


tacles his grey eyes gleamed with invincible benevolence. 
Like Carlyle’s hero, he seemed longing to take all mankind 
to his bosom and keep it warm. One felt thet if any bureau- 
crat or the czar himself had come destitute or afflicted, he 
would have found shelter there. To all the weary and heavy- 
laden that open heart would have given consolation. And 
yet there lived a contradiction in the figure of the man, for 
there was nothing soft or tender about that. The broad 
shoulders, the deep chest, the erect carriage, and straight 
back revealed the military training of his youth. But for his 
head, you would have cried, “Behold, the Guardsman!” A 
Guardsman like one of ‘those troops of whom Czar Nicholas 
I., reviewing them on parade, exclaimed with a sigh of 
disappointment, “And yet they breathe !” 


“Man is a very complex being,” as Kropotkin himself ob- 


served in his “Mutual Aid,” and I was often amused, dur- 
ing my long acquaintance, by this admixture of the aristocrat 
and officer in a nature so strongly opposed by reason to 
rank and war. Unconsciously, perhaps unwillingly, he kept 
in himself the leavings or relics of his birth and training. 
His “Memoirs of a Revolutionist” were not published till a- 
bout seven years after my first meeting with him, and there 
the origin and meaning of this queer complexity are revealed. 
Those Memoirs are to be counted among the most interest- 
ing autobiographies ever written. 


His method of work was peculiar, and, to an orderly Eng- 
lishman, embarrassing. During the appalling period of Rus- 
sian reaction (it seemed appalling then, though we have since 
seen how readily our own and other Governments can rival 
its horror, as in Ireland, Finland and Hungary) — during 
that ghastly persecution of all advocates of freedom under 

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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


Nicholas II. and Stolypin in 1908 and 1909, while Tolstoy 
was issuing his superb pamphlet, “I Cannot be Silent,” 
Kropotkin was writing his book, called “The Terror in Rus- 
sia.” As I had been out during the revolution of 1905 and 
the two following years, he asked me to help him in getting 
the subject into order. Order was his difficulty. He knew so 
much, thought so much, felt so much, it seemed impos- 
sible for him to keep within limits. Writing at great speed, 
he poured out sheets of | straggling manuscript. Then omis- 
sions occurred to him—omissions by the dozen. With strange 
devices of flying lines, loops, brackets, and circles he struggled 
to get them in. He was constantly altering his arrangement, 
never sure in what sequence the statements or reflections 
ought to come. Loose leaves would be scribbled over, and 
they had to be tucked into the manuscript somehow. 


Unaccustomed to work in that manner, I felt as though 
floundering in a bottomless bog upon an unlimited steppe. 
All appeared uncertainty, confusion, and chaos. But Kropot- 
kin never for a moment lost his temper or his genial exuber- 
ance. I suppose his was the Russian way of doing things, 
for he never thought it in the least perplexing or strange. 
And in the end the chaos worked itself out, as definite and 
well-arranged as the starry heavens. No one reading that 
book could imagine what a turmoil of confusion it went 
through before it emerged perfectly clear and clean and 
trim as it stands. In reading his other books — ‘Mutual 
Aid”, the “Memoirs”, “Fields, Factories, and Workshops”, 
“The Conquest of Bread”, and so on—always so well-ordered 
and easy to understand, I often wonder whether they too 


had passed through this process of dishevelled undress. 


I saw him last on the occasion of his seventieth birthday 
in December, 1912. I had just come from the war of the 
Balkan League against Turkey, and we naturally talked of 
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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


war. He was already expecting the overwhelming disaster 
that was to fall upon Europe in eighteen months’ time, and 
when it came, he certainly welcomed it. He hoped and 
believed it would end militarism and the despotic State for- 
ever. Perhaps he was the only man of distinction who sin- 
cerely believed in “The War to end War.” His faith in 
humanity was inexhaustible. When the Russian Revolution 
of March, 1917, came about, he welcomed it in the same 
manner. It seemed that the time foretold to him by Sophie 
Perovskaya some years before her execution had come at 
last: “We have begun a great thing,” she had said; “two 
generations, perhaps, will succumb in the task, and yet it 
must be done.” Unhappily, Kropotkin lived to see both 
these great hopes frustrated. As is usual after wars, the 
conquered have led the conquerors captive. German militar- 
ism and the tyranny of the State have been transferred in 
almost full abomination to this country and to France, to 
say nothing of the new States carved out of Austria’s corpse. 
And the revolution in Russia has taken to itself forms far 
different from Kropotkin’ s ideal of the free and communistic 
associations upon which his hope was set when he wrote:— 


“A new form of society is germinating in the civilized natiors, 
and must take the place of the old one: a society of equals, who 
will not be compelled to sell their hands and brains to those who 
choose to employ them in a haphazard way, but who will be able 
to apply their knowledge and capacities to production, in an organ- 
ism so constructed as to combine all efforts for procuring the great- 
est sum possible of well-being for all, while full, free scope will be 
left for every individual initiative. This society will be composed 
of a multitude of associations, federated for all the purposes which 
require federation.” — 
And so on, the agreements between the federations being 
entirely free. 
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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


Lenin’s Government fulfills some of those conditions, but it 
is a “Government”, and upon individual freedom and free- 
dom of association it appears to impose strictly narrow 
limits. Perhaps Kropotkin retained too fond a faith in the 
unity and fundamental goodness of mankind, as he expounds 
itin the main thesis of his ‘Mutual Aid”. Perhaps he never 
fully realized how incalculably lower than the angels man 
still remains. But when I remember his sunshiny nature, his 
inextinguishable hopefulness, his loving kindness to all who 
came, and his utter and regardless devotion to the one cause 
of the working people, I could easily forgive our bishops 
and clergy, our Lords of the Council and all the nobility, 
our Cabinet Ministers, Members of Parliament, and all who 
set themselves in authority over us if they fell into similar 
errors, provided only that they followed his great example. 
For to remember him is to perceive a guiding star in these 
our darkest hours. 


“The Nation” London, Feb. 5, 1921. H. W. NEVINSON 


on 


“We should understand that the standpoint being wrong, the so-called ‘laws’ of value 
and exchange are but a very false explanation of events, as they happen nowadays; and 
that things will come to pass very differently when production is organized in such a 
manner as to meet all needs of society.” 


“Individual appropriation is neither just nor serviceable. All belongs to all. All things 
are for all men, since all men have need of them, since all men have worked in the 
measure of their strength to produce them.” 


“What we proclaim is THE RIGHT TO WELL-BEING : WELL-BEING FOR 


ALL!” 
THE CONQUEST OF BREAD 


[ Page 105 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


HIS LAST EVENING IN ENGLAND 


=| E passed his last evening in England with his 
wife Sophie at our home at Hammersmith. He 
= }| was in a feverish state of excitement; the venge- 
sps|ance of the exiles had arrived; Russia was in 
saw 4e=5\the hands of the Revolutionists and her great 
doors wide open. Liberty was established and the country 
was bound to be free. Imagine the new world that should 
be built on these fertile plains. Some days later, he and 
Sophie had traversed the North Sea, and from Bergen we 
received a card which terminated in these words: “Au revoir, 
dear and good friends! Our next meeting will take place, 
let us hope, in Russia!” 
Alas, no more meetings and never more a word. A long, 
a very long prison-silence, and then, ... the exile died. 
We recall vividly our first interview with Kropotkin. We 
read the description that Stepniak gave of him in “Under- 
ground Russia”, and his writings were familiar to us. It 
was on the occasion of a meeting of English revolutionists 
which took place in Hyde Park a very long time ago, that 
we saw his smiling face raised towards us from a carriage 
in which we were posted. From this first day we had been 
intimate friends. 






We believe that save by his personal apostolic character, it 
is doubtful whether he had influence on the development of 
socialist ideas in England. He certainly had some disciples. 
But Anarchism, such as he and Reclus taught it, Bod but 
little echo in our country whose revolutionists allow them- 
selves from the very beginning to be guided by the Marxists. 
Kropotkin was a heart of gold, a precious friend, a noble 
teacher; may his memory survive a long time, and inspire - 
the future of humanity in its incessant although often ob- 


SCUre expanding. T. J. AND ANNE COBDEN-SANDERSON 
[ Page 106 ] 








PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


KROPOTKIN’S “MEMOIRS” 


See 25) MONG all the works of Kropotkin I prefer his 
4 | “Memoirs of a Revolutionist”, because they 
eS ve reflect his personality in the most complete way 

9.) and express best of all what his soul contained 
BAC: lof deep humanity, apart from all theory and 









beyond the passing forms his thought underwent. In all his 
writings certainly his kindness, his generosity of heart pen- 
etrate everywhere even from among the most objective sci- 
entific or historical considerations; this natural kindness and 
generosity give also to his pages of general contents an al- 
most lyrical elevation and often form the most convincing 
part of his argument. Who remembers not in the “Words 
ofa Rebel” that appeal to the young which is so warm, so 
vibrating, that a sincere heart which the egoism of practical 


life has not yet hardened, cannot help being deeply moved 
_ by it? 


And yet these writings do not reveal the whole kindness of 
the author, all the force of his sentiment; on the contrary 
they take away something of them: his reasonings lead to 
discussion, his affirmations challenge criticism, combatable 
opinions form a cloud before essential, incontestable truths 
which sentiment permits one to perceive. 


In all which directly concerns human life, in particular social 
life, there exists sentimental truths which cannot Le proved 
by arguments—whatever the pseudo-scientists of our days 
may think. These truths which many feel more or less dis- 
tinctly, are only revealed to the best and this revelation is 
still more achieved by acts than by words. For a Kropotkin, 
for an Elisée Reclus, ideas are only the intellectual expres- 
sion of truths connected with their soul, with their whole 


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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


life, truths which emanate from their actions, from the lines 


of their faces, from the sparkling of their eyes. 


For these reasons the “Memoirs” of Kropotkin, the corres- 
pondence of Elisée Reclus, not only excite the interest of 
those who knew them or sympathize with them, but they 
have also the highest educational value: they throw sparks 
of light amidst the darkness created by hypocrisy and lies 
which up till now corrupted the social atmosphere; they show 
what heights may be reached by a human mind which is 
sincere, frank, free from prejudice and false conventionality; 
they make us see the possibility of human relations based 
no longer upon violence, but upon the free agreement of 
the participants, upon their will expressed spontaneously. 


When we close the “Memoirs” of Kropotkin we cannot do 
less than confess: here is a man worthy to live in a society 
without laws and obligations, here is a man whose word is 
worth more than all legal guarantees, here is one who will 
never try to oppress others, here is the model of the citizen 
of an ideal society where freedom and equality will really 
reign supreme. 


“Il Pensiero’’, numero unico. JACQUES MESNIL 
Bologna, December 1912. 


“Law introduces, or gives sanction to, Slavery, Caste, paternal, priestly, and military 
authority; or else it smuggles in serfdom, and, later on, subjection to the State. By this 
means, Law has always succeeded in imposing a yoke on man without his perceiving it, 
a yoke which he has never been able to throw off save by means of revolutions.” 
MODERN SCIENCE AND ANARCHY 


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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 







)< | Full of joy old Kropotkin went back to the fabu- 
PP <ac~ \<4|lous country of the east. He was at last to see 
| fd) ¥ es whis most cherished lifelong dreams realized. He 
“was to see revolution at work, the jubiliant 
masses liberated from secular slavery and martyrizing pain. 
He was to see a free humanity, building up her own destiny 
in accordance with a high ideal. He was to see happy eyes 
full of joy and to listen to the pulsations of free hearts greet- 
ing the dawn of socialism. 


But how different all was in reality ! 


Kropotkin had always dreaded one thing in his work for 
revolution: that the revolutionists at the right moment should 
be too usillanimous, too blear-eyed, too narrow-minded, that 
they ASR stop midway, that instead of abolishing by lib- 
erating action all old institutions and traditions of police- 
ridden bourgeois society, they should slavishly imitate such 
a society, that instead of crushing the State, that secular in- 
stitution of tyranny and oppression, they should incrust 
themselves in the State and transform the victories of re- 
volution into victories of Statist reaction. 


His fears, but not his hopes, were realized. 


Narrow-minded State fanatics got hold of all power. Far 
from real life in their studies they read somewhere in a 
socialist theology, that the form of the revolution was only 
determined by economic factors. The features of the revolu- 
tion were all traced there. And these blear-eyed people laid 
the revolution on their Procrustean bed of Marxism, cut off 
part of her feet which as a rule serve for walking, and part 
of the head which usually serves for thinking purposes, and 
[ Page 109 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


then looked at their work with self-satisfaction. For they had 
acted in conformity with the dogmatic prescriptions of soci- 
alist theology in which they believed. Life was mutilated ac- 
cording to the demand of dead letters. And the revolution 
writhed in pain on her sick-bed and wailed. 


This picture met Kropotkin when he approached the country 
where he had hoped to find his dreams realized. 


Poor soul! If you had suffered before, you suffered doubly 
now. And yet you did hope. Your big and warm heart re- 
fused to admit the wreck of your hopes. You gave not up 
hope, the last thread linking you to grim life. But you did 


suffer. 


And you suffered not only in spirit, but also physically. Not 
only your soul was tortured by the brutality of life, also 
your old shaken body underwent physical want and priva- 
tions. And at last they became too much for you. You had 
no longer the power to resist. One night your tired eyes 
closed forever. It may have been written in the cruel book 
of fate that he who sacrificed most to revolution, should 
be done to death by revolution. 


Mm to w& 


Let us be fair. The Russian government did do or wanted 
to do all that could be done to improve the situation of 
Kropotkin. They wanted to make him participate in the 
advantages, the privileges which the State could dispose of, 
the privileges which they dispensed to their favorites. But 
Kropotkin did not wish to receive anything from his eternal 
enemy—the State. Up till then he had only received prison- 
sentence and persecution from the State. He knew how to 


die without bending his proud head before the enemy. 


[ Page 110] 


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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


90 a way out was devised by the offer to buy Kropotkin’ s 
works. 200,000 rubles were offered for each of his books. 
Kropotkin remained inflexible and declared to Lunatcharski 
that he never received anything from the State and was 
never going to accept anything from it. 


For he was an anarchist and a revolutionist not only by 
words but also by his way of acting. The State was his and 
mankind’s enemy, and he did not wish to transact with it, 
to bow before it, to reap advantages at the cost of others. 


So he was an anarchist. ... 
ALBERT JENSEN 


Oe 


“When the revolutionary situation ripens, which may happen any day, and govern- 
ments are swept away by the people, when the middle-class camp which only exists by 
State protection, is thus thrown into disorder, the insurgent people will not wait until 
some new government decrees, in its marvelous wisdom, a few economic reforms. The 
people will themselves abolish private property by violent expropriation, taking posses- 
sion, in the name of the whole community, of all wealth accumulated by the labor of 
Past generations. 

They will not wait to expropriate the holders of social capital by a decree which neces- 
sarily would remain a dead letter if not accomplished in fact by the workers themselves. 


They will take possession thereof on the spot and establish their rights by utilizing it 
without delay.” THE COMMUNE OF Paris 


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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


IMPRESSIONS ON THE OLD REBEL 


HEN I read the various obituary notices on 
Kropotkin, I was strongly and almost painfully 
affected by the following: We were told the 
most wonderful things of Kropotkin the theor- 
iene e<@4 ist of anarchism, the man of science, the great 
exponent of mutual aid, etc., but little, very little, was said 
of Kropotkin as a man. Even his most intimate friends 
hardly touched upon this side. Most were content to praise 
his great merits for suffering humanity and to admire his 
manifold untiring activity. I remembered on _ this occasion 
what one of our best once wrote to me: “they see only m 
work, my special faculties, the services which I rendered to 
the movement, but they do not see me, my own self.” This 
was a bitter remark and I tried to explain it away by all 
sorts of futile arguments as one usually does; I do not know 
with what result. 













i 


It seems to be the destiny of all great personalities to be 
buried under the weight of their genius. Their qualities and 
merits make us easily forget their purely humane side which 
is just the element that calls forth the strongest response 
from our inner sentiment. -For this reason more attention 
should be paid to this important and valuable feature of 
Kropotkin’s personality. His revolutionary activity and his 
writings need no commentaries and speak for themselves. 
His clear reasoning, the sober beauty of his style cannot be 
overlooked and need no comments, but a closer examina- 
tion of his purely -Lumane qualities is important. 


I cannot boast of having belonged to the circle of Kropot- 
kin’s intimate friends, but I knew him personally for over 
twenty-five years and often met him at meetings, conferences 
of groups, social evenings and in private conversation. I saw 

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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


him for the last time shortly after the outbreak of the war. 
I visited him in his small house at Brighton in company 
with our old friend M. Cohn and his wife from New York. 
I shall never forget the impression of this visit. We spoke 
on the problem of the war; this was before he had publicly 
taken sides on this question. His remarks stirred the inner- 
most depths of my heart. I wished never to have heard 
these words which burned in my soul like an open wound. 
And yet I had no bitter feeling against this man, for I knew 
that he expressed only his deepest inner conviction. At that 
very moment when our opinions were so utterly opposed, 
I conceived to a fall extent what was great and purely 
humane in his personality. 


I had come to London from a small Ukranian town as a 
girl of seventeen, and was until then completely under the 
sway of. strictly religious views. Like so many others, I first 
became acquainted with the ideas of modern socialism in 
the great Ghetto of the East End, and by and by arrived at 
a standpoint diametrically opposed to my earlier views. I 
had read some tracts by Lassalle, Marx and Engels in the 
“Zukunft”, the American Yiddish socialist organ, when I 
chanced to meet with Kropotkin’s little pamphlet “An Ap- 
peal to the Young”. The impression of this upon me can- 
not be described. I felt that the man who wrote this had 
spoken from the depths of his heart, and I felt that venera- 
tion for him of which only the passion ofa young idealist 
is capable. It would have been the tragedy of my life if I 
had found Kropotkin to be different in real life from the 
man he was in these pages. 

What joy did I not feel when I saw one day a notice in 
the “Arbeiter Freund” that Kropotkin was going to lecture 
for us. The general enthusiasm of all upon his appearance 
showed clearly that all who had met him felt the same extra- 
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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


ordinary sympathy for him as I myself. But it would be 
a mistake to suppose that his exceptional knowledge and 
other faculties were the cause of this deep sympathy. No, 
of these perhaps nobody was thinking at that moment. His 
refined winning smile, the tender look of his eyes, his na- 
tural manner, his warm and brotherly handclasp evoked 
the undivided love and sympathy of all whom he met, and 
all oftus who were at that meeting, tailors, carmen, dockers, 
sempstresses, felt that he was animated by the same 
feelings toward us which we felt for him, as a friend and a 
brother. 


Kropotkin was man before all. He loved the simple man 
of the people with the whole energy of his great soul. He 
believed in the people with that great and passionate con- 
viction which elevated and inspired all who came into con- 
tact with him. Most of the so-called “great men”, many 
socialists among them, enjoy the glory resulting from their 
works and closer contact with them often leads to most bitter 
disappointment. The opposite was the case with Kropotkin: 
the more intimately one got to know him, the more one 
loved and appreciated him. 


“To co-operate with him, under the influence of his pres- 


ence, is a real inspiration,” a Georgian comrade once told 


me. This was during the first months of the war, and our 
friend was as strongly opposed to Kropotkin’s standpoint 
as I was myself. —“I have often co-operated with him,” he 
said, “I arranged his library and his numerous written notes. 
Whatever may be his standpoint, I must love him as long 
as I live.” 


What must have been the qualities of a personality which 
could create such deep and unchanging sentiments in others! 


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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


Some comrades thought that it was fortunate that Kropot- 
kin’s health forced him for the last twenty years to give up 
almost completely public activity in the movement; for only 


by this, they think, was he able to finish his best writings. 


I beg to differ from this opinion. The presence in the move- 
ment of a man like Kropotkin, his daily contact with the 
people, can have a more wonderful effect than his best works. 
The personal influence of such a character cannot be over- 
estimated. The scarcity of such men in our midst must be 
deeply deplored, above all, today, when mediocrity gangrened 

y scepticism and stupid, mean penny-materialism appear 
to be paramount everywhere. The love of humanity which 
Kropotkin felt with his whole heart, has become an em 
phrase and all genuine idealism is laughed at by those who 
used the masses as a stepping-stone to power. 


May the memory of the beautiful personality of our great 
dead friend help to keep awake in all of us that spirit of 
deeply humane sentiment which alone can guide us on our 
way towards coming freedom. 


Berlin, September 1921. MILLY WITKOP-ROCKER 


* % 


“The theoretical aspects of anarchism, as they were then beginning to be expressed in 
the Jura Federation, especially by Bakunin; the criticisms of state socialism -- the fear of 
an economic despotism, far more dangerous than the merely political despotism -- which 
I heard formulated there; and the revolutionary character of the agitation, appealed 
strongly to my mind. But the equalitarian relations which I found in the Jura Moun- 
tains, the independence of thought and expression which I saw developing in the work- 
ers, and their unlimited devotion to the cause appealed far more strongly to my feel- 
ings; and when I came away from the mountains, after a week’s stay with the watch- 
makers, my views upon socialism were settled. I was an anarchist.” 

MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST 
[ Page 115] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


FROM AN OLD COMRADE 


[Georges Herzig, of Geneva, a devoted comrade from the early days of the ‘Révolté’, 
1879, onward and still active in the ‘Réveil’, still working and cruelly ill. This is what 
Kropotkin remarks in his ‘Memoirs’:] 


“,..FJe was a man of suppressed emotions, shy, who would blush like a girl when he 
expressed an original thought, and who, after I was arrested, when he became respon- 
sible for the continuance of the journal, by sheer force of will learned to write very well. 
Boycotted by all Geneva employers, and fallen with his family into sheer misery, he 
nevertheless supported the paper till it became possible to transfer it to Paris. 


To the judgement of this friend I could trust implicitly. If Herzig frowned, muttering, 
“Yes— well — it MAY do’, I knew that it would not do.” 









==/OW I would have loved to pay tribute to the 
#6 7) great qualities of our common friend! Every mo- 
3 | ment of his life was a precept. His great en- 
Waa) | thusiastic heart preserved him from all sectari- 
-=a°| anism. His fidelity to our ideas did not limit his 
s, and he was able to recognize in the currents of 
opinions those that were favorable to us and that reinforced 
the anarchistic ideas, by nourishing through indirect means 
the root of their development. I would have desired to show 
you our friend in full activity at Geneva where | knew him 
and in the vast correspondence that he maintained with his 
friends everywhere. It will have to be postponed until an- 
other time, illness permitting me only— and for how long? 
—the leisure of some hours consecrated to the daily work. 





<4 C294) 


GEORGES HERZIG 


[ Page 116] 








PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


OUR PETER 
=e | HEN we speak among Anarchists of “Our Peter” 
cA (notre Pierre), everyone knows to whom we refer. 
Pa )/ e242)... It is not lip-service, but comes from the very 
f js ig depths of our hearts, when we say that we owe 
we GSS4))a great debt to Kropotkin, the man who has 
devoted his whole life to the propaganda of his principles. 
He who could have been a rich man, chose a lie of 
struggle and hardship; he who could have wielded power 
and have had high rank, preferred to lead a studious lif 
and be an author for the people. 






His name reaches far, but his influence reaches still further. 
He will go down in the history of civilization as one of the 
pioneers of progress; he will occupy a permanent place in 
the book of human martyrdom for the emancipation of the 
working class from the yoke of capitalism. 


We are not worshipers of saints, but we pay homage to him 
whose life is worthy to be honored. He belongs to us, and 
we are proud of such a man, one whose profound know- 
ledge, unexcelled integrity and high idealism have found ap- 


preciation even among his opponents. 


Future generations will appreciate our comrade Peter Kropot- 
kin at his full worth. But itremains for us to give him what 
little token we may of our love, understanding and esteem. 
And it is not for him that we do it : he needs not our praises; 
rather do we do it for ourselves. We feel happy that we 
can say to him, to the whole world, that we are proud of 
him. 


Does that signify that we agree with ever thing he has written? 
By no means. Nor would he himeelf wish us merely to 
subscribe to his opinions. Such disciples would find small 


{ Page 117] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


favor with him. He, most ofall, wants thinking, self-con- 
scious men and women. And it is as independently think- 
ing men and women that we offer him our love and our 
gratitude. 


With his life and his works he has wrought not for a day, 
but for all time. His name will live as one of the best of 


his kind. 


“Mother Earth”, Dec. 1912. F. DOMELA NIEUWENHUIS 


VQVe 


“We maintain that in the interests of both science and industry, as well as of society as 
a whole, every human being, without distinction of birth, ought to receive such an 
education as would enable him, or her, to combine a thorough knowledge of science with 
a thorough knowledge of handicraft. We fully recognise the necessity of specialisation 
of knowledge, but we maintain that specialisation must follow general education, and 
that general education must be given in science and handicraft alike. To the division of 
society into brain workers and manual workers we oppose the combination of both kinds 
of activities; and instead of ‘technical education’, which means the maintenance of the 
present division between brain work and manual work, we advocate the EDUCATION. 
INTEGRALE, or complete education, which means the disappearance of that pernicious 
distinction.” FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS 

[ Page 118] 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


MY ACQUAINTANCE WITH PETER A. 
KROPOTKIN 


Seacieaeoen 


=~ MADE his personal acquaintance in England in 
“1897, after my expulsion from Russia by the 

g  czarist government. 
'< He received me with that cordial welcome, with 
~ ~=s==. that fineness, so well known by those who came 
in contact with him. And soon I felt his sincere benevo- 
lence which made us realize that we could count on him in 
case of need. My intimacy with Leo Tolstoy, for whom I 
entertained a profound respect and sincere sympathy, na- 
turally played a great role in his relations with me. Tolstoy, 


on his part, also respected Kropotkin highly. 












In the spring of 1897, having delivered a letter ffom Kropot- 
kin to Tolstoy, I received one from Tolstoy in which he 
wrote me: “Kropotkin’s letter has pleased me very much. 
His arguments in favor of violence do not seem to me to be 
the expression of his convictions but only of his fidelity to 
the banner under which he has served so honestly all his 
life. He cannot fail to see that the protest against violence, 
in order to be strong, must have a solid foundation. But a 
protest for violence has no foundation, and for this very 
reason is destined to failure.” 

When I had read_ these words to Kropotkin, the latter, ev- 
idently touched by the sympathy of Tolstoy, and as if to 
confirm the lines I had just read, spoke some phrases to 
me whose gist, if not the very words, has been indelibly im- 
pressed upon my brain. 

“In order to comprehend how much I sympathize with the 
ideas of Tolstoy, it suffices to say that I have written a 
whole volume to demonstrate that life is carried on, not by 
the struggle for existence, but by mutual aid.” 

[ Page 119 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


Leo Nicoleyevitch wrote me in January 1903: “One has 
time to sr es when one is ill. During this illness I was 
particularly occupied with recollections and my beautiful 
memories of Kropotkin were given special preference.” 
Later, in February, Tolstoy wrote me: “Send Kropotkin my 
kindest greetings... I have recently read his ‘Memoirs’ and 


I am delighted with them.” 


On the question of non-resistance to evil and violence we 
came to have hot disputes, as was necessarily to be expected 
and he sometimes got to be greatly excited over my obstin- 
acy, as a consequence of his ardent temperament, but these 
transitory differences always terminated in a touching re- 
conciliation which showed indeed the extreme and funda- 
mental goodness of Kropotkin’s character. 


I was constantly surprised at the rapidity of his impressions 
and conceptions, at the extent of his interests, his remark- 
able erudition in the sphere of economics and international 
politics. 


Kropotkin reminded me of Tolstoy by the astonishing vari- 
ety of subjects which interested him. And if Kropotkin, in 
his intercourse with me was silent upon the “spiritual” ques- 
tions which Tolstoy looked upon as the foundation of his 
comprehension of life, one nevertheless felt, incontestably, 
that at the core of his heart, Peter Alexeyevitch was not a 
materialist, but an idealist of the purest water. 

V. TCHERTKOFF 

De 


“We understand therefore why Anarchism, since Godwin, has disowned all written 

laws, although the Anarchists, more than any legislators, aspire to Justice, which — let 
us repeat it—is equivalent to EQUALITY, and impossible without it.” 

MODERN SCIENCE AND ANARCHY 

[ Page 120 ] 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


KROPOTKIN THE SCIENTIST 







=A ROPOTKIN’S anarchism does not exclusively be- 
%) long to the anarchists. It forms part of the whole 
, <2 scientific, philosophical, social, human move- 
“~<¥ | ment of our times, being linked to it by thousands 
<8\of branches, roots, more or less visible ties. 
Kropotkin’s anarchist conception is only the conclusion, the 
sum of the progress of human spirit and individual and 
social activity in all domains, also those which in appearance 
are the most opposed to it. 





History and its philosophy, natural and biological science, 
criminology, morals, all spheres where human intellect 
operates, none of these are strange to Kropotkin. Not only 
to him personally—there are men of science in other parties 
who have in some way double personalities, that of the 
militant and that of the scientist, — but all these various 
branches of human lore are akin also to his anarchism. 
They all form an inseparable total... Kropotkin’s originality... 
consists not in the opinions expressed on separate philoso- 
phical or scientific subjects which others already discussed 
toa large extent, but in the synthesis of these conceptions 
by which he presents them under the same light, inspired 
by a higher sense of justice, equality and freedom. 


He has not like August Comte written a single work com- 
prising the conclusions drawn from all sciences, but his 
work may yet be called universal and encyclopaedic like 
that of Comte, though scattered over so many books, pam- 
phlets, longer and shorter articles examining separate sides 
of the social question, that question which embraces all the 
problems of our time. 


Intellectual and spiritual brother of Elisée Reclus— who in 
“L’Homme et la Terre” left us a universal history which 
{ Page 121 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


also is the synthesis of his own thought and of scientifieands 
human progress, — like Reclus, Kropotkin also expressed. 
this synthesis by one word: anarchy. 


Hence, just as in his most scientific works, Kropotkin al- 
ways arrives at libertarian socialist conclusions, so in his 
intellectual work for his party, in his smallest propaganda 
amphlets, in the most ephemeral articles in fig ting papers 
his way of | reasoning, always inspired by a strong sense for 
freedom and love for mankind, follows methods based upon 
science and from science gathers the most ample proofs. 
“Tl Pensiero”, Dec. 9, 1912. LUIGI FABBRI 


“Equality in mutual relations, with the solidarity arising from it, this is the most pow- 
erful weapon of the animal world in the struggle for existence. And equality is equity. 


By proclaiming ourselves Anarchists, we proclaim beforehand that we disavow any way 
of treating others in which we should not like them to treat us; that we will no longer 
tolerate the inequality that has allowed some amongst us to use their strength, their 
cunning or their ability after a fashion in which it would annoy us to have such qual- 
ities used against ourselves. Equality in all things, the synonym of equity, this is Anar- 
chism in very deed. To the devil with the ‘white bone’, who takes upon himself a right 
to deceive other folks’ simplicity! We do not desire him, and, if need be, we will sup- 
press him. It is not only against the abstract trinity of Law, Religion, and Authority 
that we declare war. By becoming Anarchi-:ts, we declare war against all this wave of 
deceit, cunning, exploitation, depravity, vice -- in a word, inequality -- which they have 
poured into all our hearts. We declare war against their way of acting, against their 
way of thinking. The governed, the deceived, the exploited, the prostitute wound above 
all else our sense of equality. It is in the name of equality that we ate determined to 
have no more prostituted, exploited, deceived and governed men and women.” 
ANARCHIST MORALITY 
[ Page 122 ] 





buat 





KROPOTKIN IN HIS LIBRARY, BROMLEY, KENT, (ENGLAND) 











PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


A SAFE AND SANE AGITATOR 


(aa), HAT a poor self-satisfied civilization is ours, 
in tA sy) | that points with pharisaic pride to its rank- 
o Les growing charities and jails; and yet makes a 
die term of reproach of the name. “Radical” but 
(eae Ges) even “Revolutionary” and “Anarchist” lose their 
ication of violent and visionary as we read Kropot- 
kin’s life. 
He shows that Revolution is the natural order, and Anar- 
chy the highest of philosophies. No more sane and practical 
business program can be found than that in Part VI of his 
“Memoirs”, under the title “A New Form of Society”: it is 
a workable constitution of a true Utopia in less than four 
hundred words. In the same chapter he lays down a pro- 
gram for Socialist papers that made a permanent success 
of “Le Reévolté, continued as the “Temps Nouveaux”. To 
know his Autobiography is to know and love the writer; to 
study his works is to acquire a scientific training; and to 
read his “Fields, Factories and Workshops” is to find a 


basis for success in our private undertakings. 






Not violence to introduce the New Order is needed, nor 
laws to put it in operation; all that is needed is to cease 
from violence and to repeal laws. This great and severely 
logical Scientist and senbing Philanthropist, an aristocrat b 
birth and brain gave his-heart and his life to illustrate the 
plan. The Gift is a Start to guide and cheer the rest of us 
who are proud, as he was, to be called, Radicals. 


BOLTON HALL 
DP o 


“The prisons are the nurseries for the most revolting category of breaches of moral law.” 
IN RUSSIAN AND FRENCH PRISONS 
[ Page 123] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


THE GREAT SON OF RUSSIA 


=] URING the second visit to Peter Kropotkin we 
°¥,|had an hour together. In that time Peter spoke 
%| ee. j)|in detail of the Russian Revolution, the part 
Ich “(| played by the Bolsheviki, the lesson to the 
\esmrazx@®4') Anarchists in particular and the world in gen- 
eral. He considered the Russian Revolution in scope and 
possibilities greater than the French Revolution. While it is 
true that the people were not developed in the Western 
sense, yet they are more responsive to new arrangements 
of life. The spirit of the masses during the February and 
October Revolutions demonstrated that they understood the 
great changes waiting their concerted efforts, and they were 
willing to do their share. 


ARES 














The people knew that something tremendous was before 
them, which they themselves must face, organize and direct. 
That spirit, though now fettered by hunger, privation and 
persecution, is yet very much alive. The dogged resistance 
offered by the people of Russia to the Bolshevik yoke is the 
best proof of that. The Bolsheviki in their march to power 
were far from being the advance guard of the revolution, as 
they claim. On the contrary, they were the dam which had 
thrown back the rising tide of the people’s energies. 


In their fixed idea that only a dictatorship can direct and 
protect the revolution, they went about strengthening their 
formidable state which is now crushing the revolution. As 
Marxians they never have, nor will they ever realize that 
the only protection of the revolution lies in the ability of the 
people to organize ‘their own economic life. For the rest, 
Kropotkin added, he had set forth his views on the Rus- 
sian Revolution in his letter to the workers of Europe, which 


was, I believe, widely published. 
[ Page 124 ] 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


Kropotkin also spoke of the part the Anarchists played in 
the revolution, of the death of some, the heroic struggle of 
many, the irresponsibility of the few. Above all, he em- 
phasized the need for all the Anarchists to be better equipped 
for reconstructive work during the revolution. I distinctly 
remember these words: 


“We Anarchists have talked much about the social revolu- 
tion. But how many had ever taken pains to prepare for 
the actual work during and after the revolution? The Rus- 
sian Revolution has demonstrated the imperativeness of 
such preparation for practical reconstructive work,” 


In a letter to one of his closest friends Kropotkin wrote that 
he had come to see in syndicalism the economic basis of 
anarchism. In other words, the medium for the economic 
organization and expression of the energies of the people 
during the revolutionary period. 


It was a memorable day. Alas, the last Iwas ever to spend 
with our Grand Old Man. When I was called to take care 
of him during his last illness I reached Dimitroff an hour 
after his death. The usual bureaucratic confusion, ineffici- 
ency and delay robbed me of the opportunity to render 
Kropotkin some slight service in return for all that he had 
given me. 


Two things had struck me in Kropotkin on both visits: The 
lack of bitterness towards the Bolsheviki and the fact that 
he never once alluded to his own hardships and privations. 
It was only after his death that I learned a few details of 
his life under the Bolshevik regime. In the early part of 
1918 Kropotkin had grouped around him some of the ablest 
specialists in various branches of political economy. The 
purpose was to make a careful study of the economic re- 
sources ot Russia, and to compile these resources in mono- 


[ Page 125 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


graphs, to make them of practical help in the reconstruction 
of Russia. 


Kropotkin was the editor-in-chief of that undertaking. One 
volume was prepared but never published. The Federalist 
League, as this scientific group was known, was broken up 
by the Government and all the material confiscated. 


On two occasions the Kropotkin apartments were requisi- 
tioned and the family forced to find other quarters. It was 
after all these experiences that the Kropotkins moved to 
Dimitroff, where he became an involuntary exile. Even in 
the summer it was difficult to visit him. Special permission 
had to be procured to travel, and that involved much effort 
and time. In the winter it was almost altogether impossible. 
Thus he, who had in the past gathered at his home the best 
in thought and ideas from every land, was now forced to 
the life of'a recluse. 


When I visited the Kropotkins in 1920, they were consider- 
ing themselves fortunate to have light in more than one 
room. During part of 1918 and all of 1919, Kropotkin wrote 
his ethics by the flicker of ‘ating oil lamp that nearly blinded 
him. During the short hours of the day he would transcribe 
his notes on a typewriter, slowly and painfully pounding 
out every letter. However, it was not his own discomfort 
which sapped Kropotkin’s strength. It was the hardships of 
Russia, the suffering about him, the suppression of every 
thought, the persecution and imprisonment for opinion’s sake, 
the endless raztrels of people, which made his last years the 
deepest tragedy. 


... In the fall of 1920 the Soctal-Revolutionists that em- 
igrated to Europe threatened retaliation if the repressions 
[ Page 126 ] 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


against their comrades continued. The Bolshevik Govern- 
ment announced in its official press that for every Commun- 
ist it would take ten Social-Revolutionists. It was then that 
the famous revolutionist, Vera N. Figner, and Peter Kropot- 
kin sent a protest to the powers that be. They pointed out 
that the practice of taking hostages was a blot on the Rus- 
sian Revolution, an evil which had already brought terrible 
results in its wake, that the future would never forgive them 
for such a barbaric method. 


The second protest was made in reply to the attempt the 
Government was making at “liquidating” all publishing un- 
dertakings, whether political, co-operative or private. This 

rotest was addressed to the Presidium of the then sitting 
Fighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets. It is interesting to 
note that Gorky, himself an official of the Commissariat of 
Education, had sent almost on the same day from Petro- 
grad a similar protest. 


Kropotkin, in his statement, called attention to the danger 
of such a policy to all progress, in fact to all thought. Such 
state monopoly on thought would make creative work ut- 
terly impossible. The situation in Russia during the last four 
years has given ample proof of that. 


One of the striking characteristics of Peter Kropotkin was 
his reticence in everything concerning himself. In my sta 
of thirty-six hours at his Dimitroff home, while his body lay 
in death, I learned more of his personal life than during all 
the years I had known him. But few even of his immediate 
circle knew that Peter Alexeievitch was an artist and a 
musician of considerable talent. Among his effects I discov- 
ered a whole collection of his drawings of | great merit. 


He loved music passionately and was himself a musician 
of no mean ability. He spent much of his leisure moments 


[ Page 127 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


at the piano. No doubt he was able to find some forgetful- 
ness and peace in the masters whose works he rendered 
with deep understanding. 


He lay in his workroom as if peacefully asleep, his face as 
tender in death as it had been in life. There he lay, this 
great son of Russia. Through strife and stress he had re- 
mained true to the revolution and would not forsake it. He 
did not live to see capitalism in Russia erected as a mon- 
ument upon the grave of the revolution. But even that would 
not have robbed him of his fervent faith in the resurrection 
of the people, the ultimate triumph of a libertarian revolution. 


Stockholm, Sweden; March 1922. EMMA GOLDMAN 


wwe 


“Millions of human beings live and die without having had anything to do with 
government.” 


“Society moves better the less it is governed.” 
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM 


“Do we require a government to educate our children? Only let the worker have leisure 
to instruct himself, and you will see that, through the free initiative of parents and of 
persons fond of tuition, thousands of educational societies and schools of all kinds will 
spring up, rivalling one another in the excellence of their teaching.” 


“While Government is an excellent machine to protect monopoly, has it ever been able 
to protect us against ill-disposed persons? Does it not, by creating misery, increase the 
number of crimes instead of diminishing them? In establishing prisons into which mul- 
titudes of men, women, and children are thrown for a time in order to come forth in- - 
finitely worse than when they went in, does not the State maintain nurseries of vice at 
the expense of the tax-payers? In obliging us to commit to others the care of our affairs, 
does it not create the most terrible vice of societies -- indifference to public matters?” 
THE PLACE OF ANARCHISM IN SOCIALISTIC EVOLUTION 


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PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


A Letter from an Old Comrade 


My dear comrade, 


You are asking me for something about Kropotkin. That which charac. 
terized him is that he loved manual, quite as well as intellectual work. 
He never wasted a moment at the printing establishment, either as a 


compositor or handling a little hand-press for the ptinting of our small 
brochures. 


Collonge-sur-Saléves 


When the forms of the journal had to be carried to the printing place of 
Plainpalais, where it was printed, he was the first to seize the shafts of 
the cart. When the printed matter was returned to the shop he set an 
example of great agility to his comrades, in folding and expediting. 


This done, the entire troop scattered in all directions for the purpose of 
selling them. 


When the Jurassienne Section organized the protests against the hangings 
in Russia, it was Pierre, as we all familiarly called him, who went to all 
the worgingmen’s corporations and even at Grithli to obtain signatures. 


Hritier who was then Chief of the Police and of the Department of 
Justice, having refused the permission of posting, Kropotkin revised the 
wording of the protest. A second refusal occurring, Pierre suggested that 


Fiéritier be answered that he would word the protest himself, which he 
did. 


It was because of this that our friend was expelled by the government of 
Berne, and it was the same Héritier who notified him of the expulsion. 
On his departure for Thonon we accompanied him to the boat. He em- 
braced us effusively. We hoped to see him soon again, but, alas! prison 
awaited him in France. 


I salute you fraternally, 
FRANCOIS DUMARTHERAY 


“Groupe de Propagande par I’Ecrit” No. 8, 1921; 
Edited by Jean Grave. 


[ Page 129 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


KROPOTKIN AS I KNEW HIM 


- remember that the first time I became acquain- 
|ted with Kropotkin was at a meeting in Berner 
“| Street Club. He made a deep unforgetable im- 
Ia) ifs)1)| pression upon me by his lecture which was so 
liebe Sel clear and simple that the simplest person could 
Y d him, by the good-nature, love, ever-radiating 
smile with which he answered questions. But I was most 
deeply impressed by him after he left the hall, escorted by 
a few comrades. Suddenly, I do not know whence they came, 
he was surrounded by a crowd of children,—ragamuffins 
from Berner Street. I know not whether his beard or the 
broad, well-worn hat he then wore attracted them to him. 
The fact is that the shabby children surrounded him and at 
that moment I saw before me the living image of Santa 
Claus standing amidst a bevy of poor children. Only instead 
of gifts his eyes were overflowing with rays upon rays of 
love. This picture I will never forget and I-will also always 
remember how the little wan faces of the children were full 
of happiness— children, some of whom he caressed, some 


of whose hands he clasped, bidding them good-bye. 






I do not know. They say that children have an unusual in- 
stinct in this respect. They discover the human soul more 
quickly than the adult does. In the instance of Kropotkin 
they surely found it. His heart was full of love for all who 
suffered—for all who were persecuted. He really hated only 
the informer, the deceiver and the back-biter. He felt a 
physical repugnance toward that genre of people. He simply 


could not breathe in their proximity. 


I am reminded of a few following instances: This again 
happened at a meeting in Berner Street. He had delivered 
one of the most successful and enthusiastic lectures. When 


[ Page 130 ] 





FROM “LIBERTAIRE” 


DRAWING 














PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


it was time for the questions he was asked one bya person 
who he was certain was a spy; although he had no direct 
evidence at that time, later it was proven that he was per- 
fectly right. I clearly remember the expression of his face 
when the fellow put his question. His beaming face became 
overcast; he turned alternately red and pale. He answered 
the questions of all, only not that of the spy, and he left 
the hall immediately upon finishing, asking me to come 
along with him. This was not his custom. Usually he would 
remain in the hall awhile to talk to the comrades. I asked 
him why he was in such haste and why he did not answer 
the fellow. He replied: “I cannot, even for one moment, 
bear to be in the same room with a spy, and one must not 
discuss with a traitor.” Naturally we took care that the fellow 
should never enter the club again. 


And here is another incident which occurred in New York: 
Kropotkin avoided reporters all his life, not because he felt 
any hatred whatsoever towards them , but he disliked to be 
a subject. I may here mention his wife, Sonia Kropotkin, 
who shielded him with all her power against the great re- 
porter-evil. She was literally his guardian and would permit 
no reporter to cross the threshold, no matter how difficult 
and unpleasant it would be for her. When he arrived for his 
lecture in America for the first time, I spoke of it to the late 
- John Edelman, saying how important it was for the success 
of his first meeting that it should be mentioned in the jour- 
nals, and that on this account he should be persuaded to 
admit a few reporters. Comrade Edelman undertook the 
task. I refused it for I did not believe that we would suc- 
ceed in persuading him. Comrade Edelman succeeded this 
time, and at a certain hour the reporters arrived with whom 
he conversed for an hour. 


When I came in, after the interview, he told me joyfully that 
{ Page 131 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


he had spoken with the reporters and that they were not at 
all what he imagined them to be. 


But his joy was short-lived. That same afternoon there ap- 
peared in the “Evening Journal” the news that Prince Kropot- 
kin ran along the street asking for a cigarette. I laughed at 
this idiotic anecdote which was printed. But I never saw 
Kropotkin so wrought up and irritated as then. “How can 
one be such a liar?” This roused him to such a pitch that 
he and Edelman went to the offices of the “Evening Journal” 
and they succeeded in getting a denial of this idiotic inci- 
dent the following morning, but hidden in an obscure corner 
and printed in their very smallest type. 


Once, at a banquet, I believe, I delivered a short speech on 
what Kropotkin created in the Anarchist movement. During 
the speech the word “prince” slipped from my lips. _Immedi- 
ately I felt as though I were being tugged at from behind, 
but I paid no attention and had my say out. 


Afterwards Kropotkin said to me: “Well, and was it really 


necessary ?” 
“What ?” 
“Oh, that ‘prince’. Is it not enough that I am Peter Kropot- 
kin ” 
“But,” I explained, “this alone is of the utmost importance 
for propaganda— a prince, and yet of his own volition—” 
He did not permit me to continue. 
“Do not do so again. If my life does not speak for itself 
then it is superfluous to say anything more.” 

S. YANOVSKY 

oDGo GF 


I Page 132 } 





PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


KROPOTKIN’S TIME WILL COME 


Sy. hough already from my early years a socialist, 
) BOE) I was a man of | nearly fifty before I became ac- 
8 Ves. { quainted with Kropotkin’s works. Renewed in- 
. Ae DN terest in gardeniig. and a friend’s advice made 
225 —\me come across, “Fields, Factories and Work- 
shops”. Having eagerly read this wonderfal book I con- 
tinued with the other books of the author and his pam- 
phlets, passed on to Bakunin and Reclus and found in this 
literature new sources of light which totally altered my views 
as to the political organisation of a socialist society. 








The bourgeois parties certainly had always told us that 
social democracy would be fatal to individual feedom and 
initiative and that the State would be utterly incompetent to 
manage the economic life of a people. And these arguments 
were advanced by them only in support of the present order 
of things and they were therefore apt to be neglected by 
those who felt this “order” to be untenable and who at the 
same time saw no other form of socialism. It was quite an- 
other thing when anarchists, ardent. socialists themselves, 
pointed out that these arguments, whilst true enough, do 
not touch socialism at all but only its combination with the 
State. That socialism, on the contrary, is the only basis of 
society upon which freedom for all, real equality and acom- 
mon expansion of individual initiative completed by free 
agreement are possible. That on the other hand, socialism 
is only practicable to the extent as these conditions are fal- 
filled which also establish that true and complete com- 
munity of interests which alone can secure the necessary 
common feeling of | solidarity. That these indispensible found- 
ations are indeed incompatible with the State, but the State 
is really quite unnecessary, without purpose and raison d’étre 


[ Page 133 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


in a society which is free from exploitation. Looking at 
things in this light, the scales fall, as it were, from our eyes, 
the old objections to socialism lose their weight, nay, only 
give further support to it and no new objections occur to us. 


The fandamental question whether anarchy, that is, freedom 
and equality, individual initiative and a common feeling of 
solidarity, is not only esential in itself, but also the conditio 
sine qua non of any successful realisation of socialism or com- 
munism altogether,—this question, some small syndicalist 
and young-socialist groups excepted—seems not yet to have 
been seriously approached at all by them. 


If anarchists are right, Bolshevism, as a means of liberatin 
the people, and realising communism, is based on false an 
contradictory principles and therefore, notwithstanding any 
amount of good will and excellent efforts, doomed to prove 
a gigantic and tragic failure. Also the time cannot be very 
far off, when this will be seen by the eyes of the workers 
themselves through the hard lessons of facts and experience. 
To counterbalance this discomfiture, centralist authoritarian 
socialism will then perhaps at last have had its time to turn 
to the trustworthy foundation stones of | coming society which 
are laid in Kropotkin’s pioneering works. 

A. HAZELAND 


re 


“If only humanity had the consciousness of what it CAN, and if that consciousness only 
gave it the power to WILL! 

If it only knew that cowardice of the spirit is the rock on which all revolutions have 
stranded until now.” THE CONQUEST OF BREAD 


[ Page 134 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


KROPOTKIN AS AN ANARCHIST 


==||HE world lost in Kropotkin much more than 
=4,only a scientist and an author, above all it lost 
2 -e| Ve%.\ by his death a great man and an exceptional 
pt Nall ° ° ° 

Ad personality. We, his contemporaries, cannot 
==! fully appreciate his importance. If we can do 
this with regard to science and literature, only future history 
can quite fairly estimate his value as a man and a revolu- 
tionary anarchist, as a great friend of. mankind, just as then 
only all the results of his ideas and theories will be seen. 





History will draw for fature generations Kropotkin’s portrait 
as a rebel against social injustice, fighting heroically for the 
emancipation of those who work and loving mankind bound- 
lessly. All Kropotkin’s writings, every page of all his works, 
every word is glowing from the bright fire of his great ideal 
—the ideal of a free society where nobody is oppressed and 
where every human being can lead a fall and free life. Free- 
dom was the bright torch burning in his heart and illumin- 
ating his all-embracing mind. Freedom was the guiding star 
on the way to his ideal. 


The devotion to freedom also explains Kropotkin’ s influence 
all the world over. As a great anarchist thinker and teacher 
of the people he attracted millions of human hearts because 
he expressed in the most complete way the deepest cravings 
of the human soul. His appeal met an echo everywhere, 
especially among the young and the workers of all countries. 
The oppressed and toiling masses found in Kropotkin a 
voice which sounded their own cares and they heard from 
his appeal the liberating hope of their own hearts. 


His works are known everywhere, his teaching of anarchist 
communism found numerous followers among the workers 
[ Page 135 ] 


PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS 


of all European countries and America of the North and 
the South. Even in faraway Asiatic countries Kropotkin’s 
name is known to progressive workers. In Japan his prin- 
cipal works were published in cheap and popular editions 
15 to 18 years ago by the Japanese anarchist martyr Kotoku. 
In China and in India also socialist and anarchist papers 
acquainted their readers with the great ideas of solidarity 
between the workers and stateless and free communism. 
The more the progressive and fighting workers recognize in 
revolutionary attempts and struggles the hostile position of 
Statism, the more the masses of the workers will take sides 
with non-governmental communism and the brighter will 
shine for them the ideal of free agreements among free men, 
the ideal of anarchist-communism which Kropotkin founded 
with so much science and exposed with so attractive a pas- 
sion. ee ee ee 


ALEXANDER BERKMAN 


Kh 


“It was not the masses of the European nations who prepared the present war-calamity 
and worked out its barbarous methods: it was their rulers, their intellectual leaders. 
The masses of the people have nowhere had a voice in the preparation of the present 
slaughter, and still less so in the working out of the present methods of warfare, which 
represent an entire disregard of what we considered the best inheritance of civilization.” 

MUTUAL AID 


[ Page 136 ] 


— oF 


ie. ——_-' 





| 


eee ee 
SS eee = = 
ee — — 








IN REMEMBRANCE OF MANY ITALIAN 
AND SPANISH FRIENDS & COMRADES 
OF KROPOTKIN 


=q/=1, INCE ALL CANNOT BE REACHED BY OUR PRESENT 
EFFORT NOR ALL THE VOICES OF THE DEAD COL. 
LECTED FROM THEIR SCATTERED WRITINGS, THE 
NAMES OF THE BEST-KNOWN MAY BE MENTIONED, 
.() ALL OF WHOM WERE IN CONTACT WITH KROPOT- 
KIN OR UNDER THE SPELL OF HIS IDEAS, THOUGH THE ANAR- 
CHIST MOVEMENT IN THE ITALIAN AND SPANISH-SFEAKING 
COUNTRIES GREW UP BEFORE HIS TIME, UNDER THE INFLUENCE 
OF MICHAEL BAKUNIN’S EFFORTS AS EARLY AS THE LATTER 
SIXTIES. THE ITALIANS ARRIVED AT COMMUNIST ANARCHISM 
QUITE BY THEMSELVES, IN THE FALL OF 1876, AND IN SPAIN 
COLLECTIVIST ANARCHISM PREVAILED FOR MANY YEARS TO 
COME, AND ONLY SINCE 1886 COMMUNIST ANARCHISM BASED 
ON KROPOTKIN’S IDEAS WAS ALSO PROPAGATED THERE. BY 





_AND BY THE DIFFERENCES BECAME SMALLER AND KROPOTKIN’S 


WRITINGS WERE WIDELY CIRCULATED BY TRANSLATIONS; THE 
ITALIAN ONES SPREAD TO A LARGE EXTENT FROM GENEVA, 
THROUGH THE CARE OF LUIGI BERTONI, EDITOR OF THE 
“REVEIL-RISVEGLIO”, WHILST THE SPANISH ONES FROM PUB. 
LISHING CENTRES IN SPAIN, ALSO IN THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC, 
WERE DISTRIBUTED OVER ALL SPANISH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES 
OF THE GLOBE, MEETING FRIENDS AND SYMPATHIZERS IN THE 
MOST DISTANT COUNTRIES. 


[ Page 137 ] 


CARLO CAFIERO, EMILIO COVELLI and ERRICO MALATESTA were 
Kropotkin’s earliest Italian friends in Switzerland. In London from 1886, Dr. F. S. 
MERLINO co-operated for years with Kropotkin and the “Freedom Group”. 


“La mia penna percid ripugna a scrivere di Pietro Kropotkine 
tutto quel bene che io penso di lui, del suo ingegno, del suo 
carattere, del suo apostolato, della sua vita,” Merlino wrote to 
L. Fabbri (Nov. 6, 1912, “II Pensiero”), and in this way most of his friends abstain 
from giving their inner feeling and speak only in a propagandist interest or when hard 
pressed for “appreciations”. Merlino who first defended anarchists at the Benevento 
trial of 1878 is still busy this summer of 1921 defending Anarchists from Milan to 
Sicily and too busy to write recollections. Others who knew Kropotkin very well thirty 
years ago were some Italian students, O. BERTOIA and the author signing EPIFANE; 
twenty-five years ago there were PIETRO GORI, the poet, orator and lawyer; ED- 
VARDO MILANO, of the deepest and truest type of anarchists; then G. CIAN- 
CABILLA (1898) and LUIGI GALLENNI, friend and comrade of Elisée Reclus by 
help of whom he escaped from deportation upon an island and reached the United 
States via Egypt and London where his “Cronica Souversiva” is remembered as well as 
Ciancabilla’s, “Protesta Umana”. Later on L. FABBRI took a deep interest in Kropot- 
kin and all the writers on anarchism in Italy, the P. SCHICCHI, R. D’ANGIO, P. 
BINAZZI and so many others of more recent days no doubt have written on Kropot- 
kin or discussed some of his ideas, among the syndicalists also ARMANDO BOR- 
GHI, (“Il Pensiero”, Dec. 9, 1912) and others. A few may have met Kropotkin when 
his health forced him to spend some winters at Rapallo and in Bakunin’s old haunt, 
Locarno, in the Swiss Ticino. : 


Kropotkin was in close relations with the Spanish Internationalists of the latter seven- 
ties whom he visited himself in 1878; GARCIA VINAS was his special friend. In 
London he knew very well F. TARRIDA DEL MARMOL, also LORENZO POR- 
TET and FRANCISCO FERRER whose death was commemorated by a speech of 
Kropotkin at the Memorial Hall, London, Oct. 21, 1909; (4 p.8° London, Nov. 1909)- 
Of Spanish anarchist authors who are certain to have appreciated him in one or an- 
other of their writings, it may be sufficient to mention old ANSELMO LORENZO, 
RICARDO MELLA, JOSE PRAT and PEDRO ESTEVE, the editor for many 
years, of the “Despertar” in the United States. 


There is no question that his ideas were appreciated in the courageous Mexican press 
of the brothers RICARDO and ENRIQUE FLORES MAGON (“Regeneracién”), 
in the Cuban anarchist papers ‘‘Tierra”; and others, in the numerous anarchist press 
of Argentina and Uraguay, from “El Perseguido” to ‘‘La Protesta” and as far as the 


smaller papers in Chile and Pera. 
M. NETTLAU 


[ Page 138 ] 








Mightier than Egypt’s tombs, 

Fairer than Grecia’s, Roma’s temples, 

Prouder than Milan’s statued, spired cathedral, 
More piduresque than Rhenish caitle-keeps, 
We plan even now to raise, beyond them all, 
Thy great cathedral sacred industry, no tomb, 
A keep for life for practical invention. 


CAs in a waking vision, 
E’en while I chant I see it rise, I scan and prophesy outside and in, 
Its manifold ensemble. 


cAround the palace, loftier, fairer, ampler than any yet, 

Earth’s modern wonder, history’s seven outstripping, 

High rising tier on tier with glass and iron facades, 

Gladdening the sun and sky, enhued in cheerfullest hues, 

Bronze, lilac, robin’s-egg, marine, and crimson, 

Over whose golden roof shall flaunt, beneath thy banner Freedom, 
The banners of the States and flags of every land, 

A brood of lofty, fair, but lesser palaces shall cluster. 


Somewhere within their walls shall all that forwards perfect human life 
be started, 
Tried, taught, advanced, visibly exhibited. 


‘Not only all the world of works, trade, products, 
But all the workmen of the world here to be represented. 


“Leaves of Grass” WALT WHITMAN 






































DE PROFUNDIS 









<==) EOPLE point to Reading Gaol and say, ‘That is 
5 ©) |where the artistic life leads a man.’ Well, it 
sen lla’ 

SoG might lead to worse places. The more mechan- 
is) ‘ical people to whom life is a shrewd specula- 
eee ¥Z\tion depending on a careful calculation of ways 
and means, always know where they are going, and go 
there. They start with the ideal desire of being the parish 
beadle, and in whatever sphere they are placed they succeed 
in being the parish beadle and no more. A man whose 
desire is to be something separate from himself, to be a 
member of Parliament, or a successful grocer, or a promi- 
nent solicitor, or a judge, or something equally tedious, in- 
variably succeeds in being what he wants to be. That is his 
punishment. Those who want a mask have to wear it. 


But with the dynamic forces of life, and these in whom 
those dynamic forces become incarnate, it is different. 





I hope to live long enough and to produce work of such a 
character that I shall be able at the end of my days to say, 
‘Yes! this is just where the artistic life leads a man!’ Two 
of the most perfect lives I have come across in my own 
experience are the lives of Verlaine and of Prince Kropot- 
kin: both of them men who have passed years in prison: 
the first, the one Christian poet since Dante; the other, a 
| Page 141 } 


man with a soul of that beautifal white Christ which seems 
coming out of Russia. And for the last seven or eight months, 
in spite ofa succession of great troubles reaching me from 
the outside world almost without intermission, I have been 
placed in direct contact with a new spirit working in this 
prison through man and things, that has helped me beyond 
any possibility of expression in words: so that while for the 
first year of my imprisonment I did nothing else, and can 
remember doing nothing else, but wring my hands in im- 
potent despair, and say, ‘What an ending, what an appall- 
ing ending!’ now I try to say to myself, and sometimes 
when I am not torturing myself do really and sincerely say, 
‘What a beginning, what a wonderful beginning!’ It may 


really be so. It may become so. 


OSCAR WILDE 


I HAVE KNOWN HIM FOR MORE THAN THIRTY 
YEARS; I have but a vague recollection of him — golden 
spectacles and fawn-colored beard growing gray. His ap- 
pearance was at the same time solid and impressive like that 
of a German professor and Norwegian dramatist whose 
charm of voice and Slavic expression would have made 
peaceful conquest by the ease of the old-time French 
culture and conversation. The prototype and example 
of the new European mystic whose ferlile imagination pre- 
pared even at that distant epoch the universal revolution, 
he was in a manner the prototype of it. His friendship was 
a blessing, but none would have sought to attain it if he 
did not possess enough candid nobility to fearlessly undergo 
the proof of its purity. There were Elisée Reclus, Elie Reclus, 


[ Page 142 ] 

















E x Cc E R P = 8 


Rogeard, the pamphletteer of the “Propos des Labienus” ,— 
Eugene Simon, author of the “La Cite Chinoise” , Vaillant, 
and the fierce Lefrancaise, ex-president of the Commune, 
among others less well-known and whom I have forgotten, 
I was a child. It is all confused within me, despite the mar- 
velous fervor of affection with which Kropotkin was sur- 
rounded by these men, the greater number of whom were 
much older than himself. And he had not yet written his 
more remarkable books. ... 


“Les Temps Nouveaux”, March, 1921. ELIE FAURE 


ws 


FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF LIBERTY, WHAT 
system would be the best? In what direction should we wish 
the forces of progress to move? 


From this point of view, neglecting for the moment all other 
considerations, I have no doubt that the best system would 
be one not far removed from that advocated by Kropotkin. 


The system we have advocated is a form of Guild Social- 
ism, leaning more, perhaps, towards Anarchism than the 
official Guildsman would wholly approve. It is in the mat- 
ters that politicians usually ignore—science and art, human 
relations, and the joy of life — that Anarchism is strongest, 
and it is chiefly for the sake of these things that we included 
such more or less Anarchist proposals as the “vagabond’s 
wage’. It is by its effects outside economics and politics, at 
least as much as by effects inside them, that a social system 
should be judged. And if Socialism ever comes, it is only 
likely to prove beneficient ifnon-economic goods are valued 
and consciously pursued. 


[ Page 143 ] 


E x Cc E R P Tes 


The world that we must seek is a world in which the cre- 
ative spirit is alive, in which life is an adventure full of joy 
and hope, based rather upon the impulse to construct than 
upon the desire to retain what we possess or seize what is 

ossessed by others. It must be a world in which affection 
is free play, in which love is purged of the instinct for 
domination, in which cruelty and envy have been mee 
by happiness and the unfettered deco ae of all the in- 
stincts that build up life and fill it with mental delights. 
Such a world is possible; it waits only for men to wish to 
create it. : 


Meantime, the world in which we exist has other aims. But 
it will pass away, burned up in the fire of its own hot pas- 
sions; and from its ashes will spring a new and younger 


world, fall of fresh hope, with the light of morning in its eyes. 


“Proposed Roads To Freedom” BERTRAND RUSSELL 


cw 


I HAVE SEEN KROPOTKIN BUT ONCE, AT THE 
home of my friend Jame Guillaume, to whom he was 
united by an old and profound sympathy. I knew him 
through his writings, through his intimate letters that Guil- 
laume read to me, often. I found him just as I had imagined 
him to be, judging from his writings, with his face illumined 
by such a beautiful smile, with that adorable sympathy 


through which a stainless soul gleamed. 


It is the unique grandeur of that personality to have been 
able to unite the extremest radicalism to the penetrating 
charm ofa sincerity that was proof against everything. This 

rince has been for the people all of his life. For all that, 


e did not dream a moment that he stooped to his inferior 


[ Page 144 ] 





: 
| 
: 


} 
J 
t 
i. 
. 


ee eT ee ee 








E x Cc E R P Leos 


brethren. He had a horror of social classifications. It was 
his dream to make a man of every man. This libertarian 


believed in the rights of man and made others believe in 
them also. 


He is one of the great figures of the century—perhaps the 
purest we have known. 


“Les Temps Nouveaux”, Feb. 1921. FERDINAND BUISSON 
ws 


-..- “MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST” IS ONE 
of my favorite books; in it he tells how he was converted by 
Alexander Herzen and became a friend of Sophie Perov- 
skaia, who was executed for the murder of the Czar Alex- 
ander. He speaks of that revolutionary circle in Petersburg 
as “a family of men and women so closely united by their 
common object and so broadly and delicately humane in 
their mutual relations that I cannot now recall a single 
moment of even tem orary friction”: yet their life was “one 
of intensest effort with fall throbbing of all the fibres of the 


inner self—a life really worth living. 


If you cannot realize from this the lovable, noble sweetness 
of” Kropotkin’s spirit, I cannot convey il. 


... de was a dreamer, an optimist, fall of aristocratic lean- 
ings towards freedom and democratic sympathies with the 
wage-slaves of the world. He was always an influence for 
good, however, a charming, interesting, loyal comrade, 
spending himself freely on the cause of others without 
counting the cost, a tried and brave soldier, as Heine said, 
“in the Liberation War of Humanity.” 


“Pearson’s”, April, 1921. FRANK HARRIS 


na) 


{ Page 145 ] 


E x Cc E R P eS 


WHAT A GREAT HONOR IT WOULD HAVE BEEN 
to have added the testimony of my veneration to all those 
who united with you in memory of Peter Kropotkin. But 
having fallen ill upon arriving in the country, I recover but 
slowly. The physical reacts upon the mental and I find my- 
self greatly depressed. It is impossible to succeed at present, 
though it is worthy indeed of the great heart that has ceased 
to beat. 

“Les Temps Nouveaux”, March, 1921. STEINLEN 


ca 


PETER KROPOTKIN WAS MY FRIEND AND WHO- 
EVER has met him realizes that to have known him is to 
have loved him. He was a man whose entire personality 
breathed goodness in words, gestures and actions. I have 
loved him since thirty years ago when he was ignominiously 
hunted from France and Switzerland by the machinations 
of Russian agents. 


Our relations began through my book “The Little Jean” 
which was translated by a niece of Kropotkin’s, Mme. Polof- 
tsoff, a lady at the court of St. Petersburg. After 1900, not 
a year passed without my going to visit him either at Lon- 


don, Mushwell Hill or Brighton. 


The first time I visited his little house, I received the im- 
pression of an atmosphere of delicious kindness and hos- 
pitality and when there were visitors, a spirited conversation 
was carried on, because, as Kropotkin said, wherever there 
are three Russians, there are sure to be three social and 
philosophical systems. And how rich and instructive was 
the conversation with Kropotkin! He spoke English and 
French to perfection and it was difficult to imagine that this 


[ Page 146 ] 





FREEDOM 


A JOURNAL OF ANARCHIST SOCIALISM. 


Vor. 1.—No. 1. 


FREEDOM. 


Trroven the long ages of grinding slavery behind us, Freedom, that 
unknown goal of human pilgrimage, has hovered, a veiled splendour, 
upon the horizon of men’s hopes. Veiled in the trembling ignorance of 
mankjnd, their misty unreasoning terror of all that revealed itself as 
power, whether it were an apparently incomprehensible and uncon- 
trollable natural force, or the ascendancy of superior strength, ability 
or cunning in human society. The inward attitude of slavish adoration 
towards what imposes itself from without as a fact beyond our under- 
standing, that is the veil which hides Freedom from the eyes of men. 
Sometimes it takes the form of the blind fear of a savage of his “ medi- 
cine” or his fetish, sometimes of the equally blind reverence of an 
English workman for the law of his masters, and the semblance of con- 
eent to his.own economic slavery wormed out of him by the farce of 
representation. But whatever the form the reality is the same, ignor- 
nce, superstitious terror, cowardly submission. 

What is human progress but the advance of the swelling tide of 
revolt against this tyranny of the nightmare of ignorant dread, which 
has held men the elaves of external nature, of one another, and of them- 
elves? Science and the arts, knowledge and all its varied shapes of 
practical application by ingenuity and skill, the binding and enlight- 
ening force of affection and social feeling, the protest of individuals and 
of peoples by word and deed against religious, economic, political and 

ial oppression, these, one and all, are weapons in the hands of the 
Rebels against the Powers of Darkness sheltered behind their shield of 
authority, divine and haman. But they- are weapons not all equally 
effective at all times. Each has its period of special utility. 

We are living at the close of an era during which the marvellous 
increase of knowledge left social feeling behind, and enabled the few 
who monopolised the newly acquired power over nature to create an 
artificial civilisation, based upon their exclusive claim to retain private, 
personal possession of the increased wealth produced. 

not the claim to use, but to s.right to prevent others from 
vsing—enables individuals who have appropriated the means of pro- 
duction, to hold in subjection all those who possess nothing but their 
vital energy, and who must work that they may live. No work is pos- 
sible without land, materials, and tools or machinery ; thus the masters 
of these things are the masters also of the destitute workers, and can 
live in idleness upon their labour, paying them in wages only enough of 
the produce to oa them alive, only employing so many of them as 
they find profitable and Jeaving the rest to their fate. 

Such a wrong once realised is not to be borne. Knowledge cannot 
long be monopolised, and social feeling ia innate in human nature, and 
both are fomenting within our hide-bound Society as the yeast in the 
dough. Our age is on the eve of a revolt against property, in the 
name of the common claim of all to a common share in the regults of 
the common labour of all. 

Therefore, we are Socialista, disbelievers in Property, advocates of 
the equal claims of each man and woman to work for the community 
&s seems good to him or her—calling no man master, and of the equal 
claim of each to satisfy as seems good to bim, his natural needs from 
the stock of social wealth he has laboured to produce. We look for 
this socialisation of wealth, not to restraints imposed by authority 
&pon property, but to the removal, by the direct personal action of 
the le themselves, of the restraints which secure property against 
the claima of popular justice. For authority and property both aro 
manifestations of the egoistical spirit of domination, and we do not 
look to Satan to cast out Satan. 

We have no faith in legal methods of reform. Fixed and arbitrary 
written law is, and has always been, the instrument er by anti- 
social individuals to secure their authority, whether delegated or 
usurped, when the maintenance of that authority by open violence has 
becothe dangerous. Social feeling, and the social habits formed and 

corrected by common experience, are the actual cement of associated 
life. It is the specious embodiment of a ion of this social custom 
in law, which bas made law tolerable, and even sacred in the eyes of 
le it exists to enslave, But in proportion as the oppression of 
i ieered, the true binding force of the influence of social feeling 
‘upon individual ibility becomes apparent and is increased. We 
look for the destruction of monopoly, not by the imposition of fresh 
Srtificial restrainte, but by the abolition of all arbi reatraints 
whatever. Without lew, property would be impossible, and labour 
and enj t free. 
we are Anarchists, disbelievers in the government of man 


the 
law 


OCTOBER, 1886. 


Monruty ; Ong Penny. 


by man in any shape and under any pretext. The human freedom to 
which our eyes are raised is no negative abstraction of licence for indi- 
vidual egoism, whether it be massed collectively as majority rule or 
isolated as personal tyranny. We dream of the positive freedom which 
is essentially one with social feeling ; of free scope for the social impulses, 
now distorted and compressed by Property, and its guardian the Law ; 
of free scope for that individual sense of responsibility, of respect for 
self and for others, which is vitiated by every form of collective in- 
terference, from the enforcing of contracts to the hanging of criminals ; 
of free scope for the spontaneity and individuality-of each human being, 
such as is impossible when one hard and fast line is fitted to all con- 
duct. Science is teaching mankind that such crime as is not the 
manufacture of our vile economic and legal system, can only’ be 
rationally as well as humanely treated by fraternal medical care, for 
it resulta from deformity or disease, and a hard and fast rule of con- 
duct enforeed by condign punishment is neither guide nor remedy, 
nothing but a perennial source of injustice amongst men. P 

We believe each sane adult human being to possess an equal and 
indefeasible claim to direct his life from within by the light of his own 
consciousness, to the sole responsibility of guiding his own action as 
well as forming his own opinions, Further, we believe that the 
acknowledgment of this claim is a necessary preliminary to rational 
voluntary agreement, the only permanent basis of harmonious life in 
common, Therefore, we reject every method of enforcing assent, as in 
itelf a hindrance to effectual co-operation, and further, @ direct in- 
centive to anti-social feeling. We deprecate as a wrong to human 
nature, individually, and therefore collectively, all use of force for the 
purpose of coercing others ; but we assert the social duty of each to 
defend, by force if need be, his dignity as a free human being, and the 
like dignity in others, from every form of insult and oppression. 

We claim for each and all the personal right and social obligation 
to be free. We hold the complete social recognition and acknowledg- 
ment of such a claim to be the goal of human progress ini the future,- 
as its growth has been the guage of development of Socjety in the 
past, of the advance of man from the blind social impulse of the 
gregarious animal to the conscious social feeling of the free human 


Re 
Such, in rough outline, is the general aspect of the Anarchist So-, 
cislism our paper is intended to set forth, and by the touchstone of 
this belief we purpose to try the current-ideas and modes of action of 
existing Society. 


THE COMING REVOLUTION. 


WE are living on the eve of great events. Before the end of this cen- 
tury has come we shail see t revolutionary movements breaking tp 
our social conditions in Europe and probably aldo in the United States 
of America. : 

Social storms cannot be forecast with the same accuracy as those 
which cross the Atlantic on their way to our shores. But still, therp 
are tokens permitting us to predict the approach of those great disturb- 
ances which periodically visit mankind td redress wrongs accumulated 
by past centuries, to freshen the atmosphere, to blow away monopolies 
and prejudices. ie 

There is a certain periodicity in these great uprisings of the op 
pressed. The end of each of the last five centaries has been marked by 

t movements which have helped Freedom to gain greand in France, 
in England, in the Netherlands, in Switzerland and in Bohemia. The 
great German historian of our century, Gervinus, saw in this periodicity 
a law ; while the Italian patriot and philosopher Ferrari, devoting special 
attention tothe phenomena of evolution and revolution, tried to explain 
its causes. Explained, or not, it has been « fact for five centuries 


nto the rule. It is suff- 


No doubt our century will be no ex 1 : 
cient to look around vs, to observe. All those facts which foreshadowed 
the approach of revolutions in times past, cannot but strike the unpre- 
jodi P 


observer, 

The commercial crisis grows woree and worse. Millions of workmen, 
driven away from the country to the eve: wing cities, are wandering 
about without work. We boast of our gigantic cities, and -of 
misery grows up in those centres where all the wealth of the world is 
spent in an sahesithy luxury, amidst the rags and destitution of the 


P powders, in no quarter, any proepect of improvement, The crisis 














little man with the long beard and the air of a good tutor 
or a simple and gentle philosopher. = 


I have seen my friend for the last time at Brighton. He 
desired to leave England for Russia and beseeched me to 
take care of his daughter Sasha, in case he would not re- 
turn. Kropotkin left England without charm for me. He 
was the best friend that I had there. 


We understood each other exceedingly well despite the fact 
that he was not religious. We never quarreled on this point. 
He knew that we were both sincere and his religion con- 
sisted in noble acts and in kindness. 


What a soul without rancour! What a heart without bit- 
terness! What optimism! 
“Les Temps Nouveaux”, March, 1921. FREDERIK VAN EEDEN 


ws 


THE RECENT VISIT OF PRINCE KROPOTKIN TO 
America has called attention anew to one of the most re- 
markable men of his generation. The career of perhaps no 
other man living has been so striking in its contrasts. An 
aristocrat by birth, he deliberately sacrificed great wealth 
and high position to become a revolutionist and a refugee, 
exchanging the favor of the Russian court to a prison cell 
and perpetual exile. He has won fame in two directions, — 
as an explorer and a scientist, and as the foremost of the 
communist Anarchists. From whatever point of view, his 
personality and his work are an interesting study. 


Kropotkin has written extensively upon Anarchism, and is 
considered by Anarchists everywhere as the leading expos- 
itor of their ideas. His two books upon this subject, written 


| Page 147 ] 


in French and published in Paris, are “Les Paroles d’un 
Revolté” and “La Conquéte du Pain”. The first of these is 
directed against the present social order, and is an appeal 
to the people to throw off the fetters of government, and to 
inaugurate a new and better era. “La Conquete du Pain”, 
with a preface by Elisée Reclus, has been called by Zola 
un vrai poeme... This book is constructive; it gives a picture 
of society under the Anarchist régime, when ‘everything is 
everybody’s,’ and brotherly consideration for all others 
prevails. 


Kropotkin’s range of knowledge is very wide. He is more 
or less conversant with upwards of twenty languages, and 
in several of these is entirely at home; he is an accomplished 
mathematician; he draws and paints skillfully, andis some- 
thing of a musician. His industry and versatility are amazing. 
Yet one does not wish to turn away from the consideration 
of such a man with reference merely to his attainments. 
Rather, one would like to dwell upon his unselfishness, his 
faith in humanity, his intuitive and unfaltering devotion to 
the most exalted moral ideals. 


“The Atlantic Monthly”, Sept. 1898. ROBERT ERSKINE ELY 


Da) 


AT THE TIME OF THE REVOLUTIONARY CON- 
GRESS of' 1881 at London, of which I was the secretary 
and interpreter, Kropotkin was on duty all of the time. From 
nine o’clock in the morning until midnight, with an inter- 
ruption of an hour at noon for dinner, in an overheated 
atmosphere reeking with the fumes of tobacco, Kropotkin 
defended his ideal energetically. Most of the members of 


the Congress were arrayed against him: Malatesta, Louise 
[ Page 148 ] 





Se 








Michel, Emile Gautier, Victorine Rouchy, Chauviere, Miss 
Lecomte of Boston, Tchaikovsky, Sanz of Mexico, etc. No 
one wanted to define the revolutionary moral, a definition 
that Kropotkin had so much at heart that it caused him to 
neglect even the organization of the International which was 
the primordial goal of the Congress. Nevertheless, our friend 
possessed such a persuasive eloquence that after 30 days 
of debate the Congress unanimously admitted the ideas they 
had heretofore rejected. 


It reminds me of the Latin proverb which says that the 
drop of water wears the stone away, not by its force but 


by the frequency of its falling. 
Throughout the Congress Kropotkin ended by winning over 


his adversaries to his side, because of his untiring persever- 
ance in addressing the house and by multiplying the argu- 
ments that crowded upon each other like drops of rain. 


J 


Pierre, as we called him, was a man of powerful mind, a 
precursor, and at the same time a martyr to the cause of 
the revolution, the true libertarian revolution. He was able 
to see, before dying, the horrors committed by the false 
communists, who have ushered in nothing but terror and 
famine. The disenchantment must have been cruel, but we, 
his friends, his disciples, will preciously keep his teachings, 
and venerate his memory. 

“Groupe de Propagande par |’Ecrit” No. 6, 1921. G. BROCHER 

ws 


He is one of the most sincere and frank of men. He always 
says the truth, pure and simple, without any regard for the 
amour propre of his hearers, or for any consideration what- 
ever. This is the most striking and sympathetic feature of 
[ Page 149 } 


his character. Every word he says may be absolutely believed. 
His sincerity is such, that sometimes in the ardour of dis- 
cussion an entirely fresh consideration unexpectedly presents 
itself to his mind, and sets him thinking. He immediately 
stops, remains quite absorbed for a moment, and then begins 
to think aloud, speaking as though he were an opponent. 
At other times he carries on this discussion mentally, and 
after some moments of silence, turning to his astonished 
adversary, smilingly says, ‘You are right’. 

“Underground Russia” STEPNIAK 

S : 


“HERE WAS ONE GUARD, AND HERE WAS THE 
other at this end; I was here opposite the gate. You know 
these problems in geometry of the hare and the hounds— 
they never run straight, but always in a curve, so, see? And 
a guard was no smarter than the dogs; if he had run straight 
to the gate he would have caught me.” 


It was Peter Kropotkin telling of his escape from the Petro- 
Paulovsky fortress. Three crumbs on the table marked the 
relative position of the outwitted guards and the fugitive 
prisoner; the speaker had broken them from the bread on 
which he was lunching and dropped them on the table with 
an amused smile. The suggested triangle had been the 
starting-point of the life long exile of the greatest man, save 
Tolstoy alone, that Russia has produced; from that moment 
began the many foreign wanderings and _ the taking of the 
simple love-given title “Comrade,” for which he had aban- 
doned the “Prince,” which he despises. 


We were three together in the plain little home of a London 
workingman—Will Wess, a one time shoemaker, Kropot- 


kin, and I. We had our “tea” in homely English fashion, 


[ Page 150 ] 





ee ===L£_— RF 2€ Cc E R P T Ss 


with thin slices of buttered bread; and we talked of things 
nearest our hearts, which, whenever two or three Anarchists 
are gathered together, means present evidences of the growth 
of liberty and what our comrades are doing in all lands. 
And as what they do and say often leads them into prisons, 
the talk had naturally fallen upon Kropotkin’s experience 
and his daring escape, for which the Russian government is 
chagrined unto this day. 


Presently the old man glanced at the time and jumped 
briskly to his feet: “I am late. Good-by, Voltairine; good-by 
Will. Is this the way to the kitchen? I must say good-by to 
Mrs. Turner and Lizzie.” And out to the kitchen he went, un- 
willing, late though he was, to leave without a hand-clasp to 
those who had so much as washed a dish for him. Such is 
Kropotkin, a man whose personality is felt more than any 
other in the Anarchist movement—at once the gentlest, the 
most kindly, and the most invincible of men. Communist 
as well as Anarchist, his very heart-beats are rhythmic with 
the great common pulse of work and life. 


“Selected Works” VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE 


ww 


I MAY SAY THAT IT IS TO KROPOTKIN I OWE 
the political ideas’ which have guided my life and I am very 
grateful to him for them. Kropotkin was the most convinced 
and convincing of the refugees at Geneva, such as I have 
always known him to be, such as I found him later, at 
London and elsewhere. 


.- Kropotkin was the sincere debator who opened new hor- 
izons to the spirit. 


... Kropotkin has remained the firm, energetic upright man, 
{ Page 151 ] 


an irreconcilable enemy of authority and dictatorship. His 

ideas caused him to almost die of hunger in the Bolshevist 

Paradise. 

“Les Temps Nouveaux”, March, 1921. VICTORINE ROUCHY-BROCHER 
wa 


WE SAW KROPOTKIN ON THE EVE OF HIS RE- 
TURN to Russia vibrant with joy because of the fall of the 
monarchy, but very anxious about the reaction, red or black, 
that attended the revolution. This man, overflowing with 
life, has not been recompensed for his work of intelligence 
and generosity. But work preserves the man, as Guyau 
says. By his work will Kropotkin remain. 


“Les Temps Nouveaux”, March, 1921. JEAN WINTSCH 
ZF 
oN 


IT WOULD INDEED BE FAIRER TO CALL THAT 
life a strenuous battle against privilege in all its forms. For 
it is not only against capitalist exploitation that he has raised 
his voice, but with equal force and power he has denounced 
those even more insidious phases of the same evil which 
authority uses to enslave the mind of man. None wish 
more than he that all should have well-being; but few un- 
happily care as he does that the individual should be really 
free in thought and word and deed. 


It may be of interest to your readers to have a few details 
of his work in England so far as it has centered round 
“Freedom”, although it must be earnestly hoped that whoso 
has not yet read his “Memoirs” will take this opportunity 
of acquainting themselves with the narrative of his life by 
getting that deeply interesting work. 


When in 1886 Kropotkin returned here from France after his 
imprisonment, there was practically no Anarchist movement 
[ Page 152 ] 











E x Cc E R P T §. 


in England. The Socialist League, however, had been formed. 
with William Morris at its head, and had already sounded 
the note of. anti-parliamentarism, clearing the air to some 
extent for Anarchist ideas, so that when “Freedom” was 
started (Oct. 1886) Kropotkin found many interested in the 
excellent articles he contributed to that paper on the aims 
and ideals of Anarchist Communism. So much so that a 
few months later it was found necessary to start a series of 
meetings at the Socialist League Hall, Farringdon Road, 
which Morris, with that fairmindedness so characteristic of 
him, had willingly let to us. 


Looking back over a quarter of a century, Kropotkin and 
those who were with him will recall these meetings, at several 
of which he explained, in his addresses, Anarchism in its 
various aspects, necessarily arousing much heated discus- 
sion; in which it may be mentioned that amongst others 
Sidney Webb, Annie Besant, John Burns and Herbert Bur- 


rows took part.... 


“Mother Earth”, Dec. 1912. A. MARSH 


cw 


KROPOTKIN WAS AMONG THE MOST EXALTED 
examples—one would say incarnations, if the word did not 
convey a mystic sense—of the human conscience... . 


When some defender of the bourgeois society will sneer- 
ingly point out the dross to us, the dross that too often a 
blind tolerance has prevented us from pitilessly sweeping 
away at the very beginning, when he will say to us: “Look 
at your Bonnot band! Look at your Vomicius!” we can 
cheerfully respond: “There is Louise Michel! There is Elisée 
Reclus! There is Kropotkin !” 


{ Page 153 | 


... The life of Kropotkin was as simple as it was splendid. 
An earnest worker, brotherly to his friends, welcoming all 
except interviewers whom he distrusted with reason, he 
never ceased to place his intimate life, as his life of a re- 
volutionist, in complete accord with his ideas. Savant, with 
an encyclopaedic erudition, he learned Wyposrep ay and 
placed no barrier between his manual and intellectual ac- 
tivity. On the contrary, he desired that every human being 
should be a worker, artist, and thinker at the same time... 
“Les Temps Nouveaux”, March, 1921. CHARLES MALATO 
wa 

... THROUGH THE REALMS OF NATURE, THE 
field of science, Kropotkin searches, with the keen and mild 
eye of the sage, for those facts and experiences which show 
that mutual aid, comradeship, solidarity, are man’s finest 
qualities and at the same time the sources and motives for 
his material and mental development. He does not discover 
in this vast realm anything that looks like a supernatural 
ethic which has the power to command us to do the good, 
but he finds already in the life of the animals unmistakable 
traces of sympathetic co-operation pointing toward the co- 
operative human commonwealth, that leaves the individual 
free and yet unfolds his social instincts and actions towards 
a life of equality and justice. Kropotkin’s sociology and 
philosophy make for reconciliation of the individual with 
society, expleting the icy social abyss which separates man 
from man like mortal enemies. 


This ideal and aim of humanism, Anarchy— nobody has 
brought its beautiful realization so sympathetically near to 
the mind and heart as the revolutionist Kropotkin, and no- 
body has, like him, furnished it with so splendid an intel- 
lectual armor... . 

“Mother Earth”, Dec. 1912. MAX BAGINSKI 


ae [ Page 154 ] 


1 oe TL A Ne on ae Tee a eee Ret eT a 


aa 
a) 
Re 
i 
ak 
E 
— 
o 
are 
Pe 
Ps 














FRAGMENTS FROM THE 
UNCOLLECTED WORKS | 
OF PETER KROPOTKIN 


cAn old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,— 
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow 
Through public scormn—mud from a muddy spring,— 
Rulers, who neither see, nor feel, nor know, 

But leech-like to their fainting country cling, 

Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,— 

cA people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,— 
An army, which liberticide and prey 

Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield, 
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay,— 
Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed; 

A Senate—Time’s worst statute unrepealed,— 

Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may 
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day. 


PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 














FROM KROPOTKIN’S STATEMENT BEFORE THE 
LYONS COURT-— JAN. 1883; 


As summed up in “Le Révolté”, Jan. 1883. 





“mq|HE son of an owner of serfs, or rather slaves, 
<2) I have seen deeds committed, since my earliest 
= childhood, like those related in the American 
7); novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” 


This was in 1862. At that time a liberal wind blew over 
Russia; they began to speak of reforms. 


Having the choice of the corps in which I had to serve, I 
did not hesitate to choose a regiment of cossacks of Siberia, 
thinking that in this unfortunate country I would be enabled 
to work on the reforms so ardently desired. I was naive 
enough to believe that the government intended to constitute 
reforms. The Polish insurrection broke out and a terrible 
reaction followed in its wake. Seeing the ineptitude of the 
government, I devoted myself to science and travelled throuch 
Siberia. Upon my return to St. Petersburg, I took a chair 
in the faculty of mathematics. A few years later, a socialist 
movement already in preparation for a long time, burst out. 


In 1873, the government arrested my brother and myself, 
[ Page 157 | 


FRAGMENTS FROM THE UNCOLLECTED WORKS 


and I spent two and one-half years in prison. In this prison 
I heard below me the cries of the unfortunates stricken by 
madness and I suffered two-fold. Nine of our companions 
became insane; eleven committed suicide. 


At the end of two years, weakened by scurvy and gastral- 
gia, they transferred me to the hospital whence I escaped. 


. .. In Switzerland, where I lived under the name of Le- 
vashoff, I ascertained the miserable situation of the workers. 
Everywhere I noticed the same wretchedness. 


I have seen great manufacturing cities where the children 
have no place in which to play but unclean courtyards, mal- 
odorous and foul. I have seen women sorting the refuse of 
vegetables in order to eat it. I have seen the misery in London 
and I have consecrated myself to the task of working with 
all my might for the social change. 


Again, I have been reproached with being the father of an- 
archism; it is too great an honor. It is Proudhon who has 
expounded it for the first time in 1848" and Bakunin and 
other socialists have vulgarised it. 


In our groups we do not cease to work, to study, and in 
place of coming to discuss with us, they imprison, they con- 
demn us becouse we defend these atonies as you call our 
ideas—which will be the realities of to-morrow. .. . 


. .. Do not foment hatreds; repression has never served 
for anything. Persecuted twice under the empire, the Inter- 
national has rearisen more glorious and _ stronger in 1870. 


Crushed in the streets of Paris, after the Commune, under 


1 This is a summary reference to Proudhon’s great public propaganda during 1848, the 
year of revolution; the ideas were elaborated before. 
The term “vulgarise” also implies tis popular propaganda. M. N. 


{ Page 158 ] 





id 
| 
| 


ee eee ee = = 


FRAGMENTS FROM THE UNCOLLECTED WORK 


35,000 corpses, socialism has gained new life in the blood 
of its Rekictce, The ideas on property have been formidably 


enlarged. 


Gentlemen, believe me, the the Social Revolution is near at 
hand; it will break out before ten years are past. I live in 
workingmen’s centres and I affirm it... . 


If I could avoid a few drops of blood from being shed by 
counselling you to face the certainty of Social Revoultion, 


ah! I could die in the depths ofa prison; I would die satis- 
fied. | 


However, if you persist in not heeding, if the bourgeoisie 
continue to hold the workers under its yoke, to persecute 


and supress them, the duty of every man of feeling is in- 
dicated beforehand. I will not fail in mine. 


_ THE FIRST WORK OF THE REVOLUTION 


“Freedom”, August, 1887; (UNSIGNED). 


-.. The great problem of how to supply the wants of the 
millions will thus spring up at once [sc. after a revolution] 
in all its immensity. And the necessity of finding an immediate 
solution for it is the reason why we consider that a step in 
the direction of communism will be imposed upon the re- 
volted society—not in the future, but as soon as it applies 
its crowbar to the first stones of the capitalist edifice. 


It is because none of the three revolutions through which 
France has passed during the last hundred years grasped 
this necessity that each was crushed in the blood of its best 
defenders. By forgetting that the workmen who can earn no 
wages during a revolutionary period, cannot continue to be 
defenders of the revolution, the leaders of these enterprises 
reduced the working classes to the most terrible misery, and 
[ Page 159 } 


FRAGMENTS FROM THE UNCOLLECTED WORKS 


finally compelled them to accept any dictator, any Emperor 
who guaranteed them work and wages, whatever were the 
conditions of work and however low the rate of wages. 


Therefore we differ from all other Socialist schools in the 
manner in which we look at the next social movements. We 
hold that the satisfaction of the wants of all must be the first 
consideration of the revolutionists; that in the very first twenty- 
four hours after a Socialist movement has broken out in a city, 
there must not be one single family in want of food, not one 
single man or woman reduced to sleep under a bridge or in 
the meadows. Our first object must be to care for provid- 
ing this food and shelter for those who are most in need of 
them, for precisely those who have been the outcasts of the 


old society. 


. .. And ifwe thus consider the satisfaction of everybody’s 
first wants, as the first duty of each social movement, we 
shall soon find out the best means of reorganising our pro- 
duction so as to supply everybody with, at least, the first 
necessities of life. ... 


THE NECESSITY OF COMMUNISM 


“Freedom”, September, 1887; (UNSIGNED). 


... Communism as to dwellings must thus necessarily 
impose itself from the very first days of any serious Social- 
ist movement. 

But who can come to an allotment of this very first neces- 
sity of life, if the inhabitants themselves cannot do it? Can 
it be a local board: Mr. A. goes to house No. 10, and Mr. B. 
to house No. 15? Obviously not! The settlement, any settle- 
ment which would last some time, can only result from the 


{ Page 160 ] 








FRAGMENTS FROM THE UNCOLLECTED WworRKs 


initiative of all interested in the settlement, from the good- 
will of all in conjunction. And a first step towards Anarchy 
—towards the settlement of a grave social question—with- 
out the intervention of Government will be iaken, 


It will take some time to come to a satisfactory conclusion 
on the question of dwellings. The Russian mir spends some- 
times three or four days before a hundred householders 
come to a unanimous agreement as to the repartition of the 
allotments of soil in accordance with the working powers of 
each family (there is no government to enforce a solution 
which is not unanimous,) but they come nevertheless. ... 


[This deep-rooted conclusion that unanimity should and could 
be reached in all such cases, if only a corresponding effort 
were made, was characteristic of Kropotkin; he repudiated 


of course the decision by majority rule, but neither did he 


much like the decision by secession, by the separate action 
of each section—he insisted that a practical unanimous solu- 


tion could always be arrived at.] M. N. 


ROCKS AHEAD 


““Freedom”, March, 1888; (UNSIGNED). 


.-- The whole of the nation in each city, village, hamlet 
and workshop, must set to work with a free hand if they 
are to succeed in the task of reorganization. And thus, the 
fallacy of Providence in a new shape—that ofa revolutionary 
Government—will have to be cast overboard like so many 
fallacies and prejudices of old. Inevitably the Anarchist 
system of. organization—free local action and free grouping 
will come into play. fe 


[ Page 161 ] 


FRAGMENTS FROM THE UNCOLLECTED WORKS 


FROM AN ADDRESS ON COMMUNIST ANAR- 
CHISM at the Freedom Group Meeting, London, March 15, 1888. 

“*Freedom’’, April, 1888. 

. .. As soon as the respect for private property has been 
shaken and the very necessities of maintaining life have 
driven the workers toward Communism, production must 
become communal....... Free workers on free land, 
with free machinery, and freely using all the powers given 
to man by science, could with the greatest ease grow the 
necessary food for the whole of the population of the coun- 
try, even if it should be doubled, ee) supply all the neces- 
saries for a comfortable living for all members of the com- 
munity. 

The two great movements of our century — towards liberty 
of the individual and social co-operation of the whole com- 
munity—are summed up in Anarchist-Communism. 


COMMUNISM AND THE WAGE-SYSTEM 


‘**Freedom’’ September, 1888. 
. .. The only equitable means of sharing the produce of 


common work is according to everybody’s needs. And that 
method of distribution is so inherent in human nature that 
we see it applied everywhere where individual appropriation 
does not prevent it. 

Our friend Cafiero has once pointed out that in the family 
which shares in common the produce of the work of all its 
members, the sharing according to need is the rule. When 
bread and meat are in plenty, then everybody consumes 
just as much as he likes. But when there is scarcity, then 
the best piece is given not to him who has earned most, but 
on the contrary, to the feeblest, to the child who earns no- 
thing yet, or to the old who earn nothing any more 


[ Page 162 ] 





FRAGMENTS FROM THE UNCOLLECTED WoRKs 


And this principle is so natural that, as soon as men are 
brought by stress of circumstances to do something in com- 
mon, forgetting mine and thine, they immediately resort to 
needs as the measure of each one’s share. One of the most 
striking features of even the present society is that it so 
much feels the impossibility of living under purely individu- 
alist principles, that it constantly resorts to communist 
principles, in order to correct the vices of individualist 
organization. .. . 


BEFORE THE STORM 


From a speech delivered by Kropotkin at the meeting held at South Place, November 
29, to bid farewell to Mrs. Lucy Parsons: “Freedom”, December, 1888. 


. - - “Something will happen; it cannot last as it is” — such 
is the opinion growing all over the civilized nations of Europe 
amidst the poorer and richer classes alike. 


..- What will this “something” be nobody can foretell. It 
may be the Communist Commune in some larger cities of 
France. It may be the Federative Republic and the Com- 
mune in Spain and Italy, and the Unitarian Democratic 
Republic in Germany. It probably will be a peasants’ out- 
break in Russia and a consequent abolition of absolute rule 
there. It may be land nationalization in this country [Eng- 
land], or some wider attempt at social reorganization. 


But, whatever it may be, tell our American friends that two 
ideas are sure to come out of the change. One of them will 
be a very wide extension of Home Rule, and, in the more 
advanced countries, a disintegration, a disjunction of the 
present governments, so as to take from their hands the 
numberless functions which they have concentrated now. 
More free understanding, more free association for achieving 


[ Page 163 ] 


FRAGMENTS FROM THE UNCOLLECTED WORKS 


the ends now monopolized by the municipalities and parli- 
aments are sure tocome out of the change. The centralized 
governments which gather in their hands all functions of 
human life—the defence of society, its education, its com- 
mercial life, and so on—have been rendered an impossibil- 
ity; disintegration of those functions must follow both in the 
State and the free commune. 


And the other idea which is sure to come out of the change, — 
will be the disappearance of many a monopoly, the social- 
ization of, at least, the first necessaries of life and production. 


Which of the two courses [sc. a peaceful one or civil war] will 
events take? We cannot fortell. But we must say that the 
lessons now given to the masses by their educated rulers 
are working precisely in the direction of preparing [civil] war. 
These rulers teach us cold contempt and disdain of human- 
ity. To speak of humanity, to preach loftier ideas, is con- 
sidered by them as wicked sentimentalism. 


... “Ifyou can, bombard peaceful cities,” so they taught 
us during the last naval manoeuvres. “Vomit death amidst 
the crowds and into the houses. No matter if: sen kill women 
and children. No sentimentalism in warfare !” 


Bombard Alexandria, if by this means you can get possession 
of a new market! Such is the lesson given by the upper 
classes. 


Again, suppose a country like Ireland, longs for Home Rule. 

ome Rule for Ireland manaces the interests of Birmingham 
manufacturers, of English landlords, and, especially, of the 
London money lenders and the English insurance companies 
to whom the mortgaged lands of Ireland really belong. 
Therefore the ruling classes throw the advocates of Home | 


[ Page 164 ] 








FRAGMENTS FROM THE UNCOLLECTED WORKS 


Rule into prison, turn the peasants who have made the soil 
out of their houses into the mud and snow of the road— 
men, women and children; and, when it serves their purpose 
drive them to despair, provoke an insurrection and then 
crush it in blood! Such are again the lessons we are taught 


by the upper classes. 


And if'a workers’ movement menaces the interests of the 
rich, as it did at Chicago, slaughter the workers, pick out 
a few energetic men and hang them without much caring 
_what is the truth about the crimes imputed to them; hang 
them to terrorize the masses! 


Such are the lessons given by the upper classes. 


Well, let us hope that the workers will be better than their 
teachers. Let us hope that the number of rebels will be so 
great and important and their leading ideas exercise so pow- 
erful an effect, that they will be strong enough not to resort 
to the wicked means now resorted to by a ruling minority 
which knows that its days are already numbered. Strength, 
force, can be generous; wicked feebleness never. 


Such are the conditions in Europe. 


. . - Many have already died for the grand cause of Free- 
dom, but none of the martyrs of Freedom have been so 
enthusiastically adopted by the workers as their martyrs. 
And I will tell you why. 

The workmen know that our Chicago brethren were thor- 
oughly honest. Not one single black spot could be detected 
in their lives, even by their enemies. Not one single black 
spot ! Mark that, young men and women who come to join 
the Socialist movement. The masses are honest and they 
ask the same from those who come to help them in their 


[ Page 165 ] 


FRAGMENTS FROM THE UNCOLLECTED WORKS 


work. While a black past goes for nothing in the ranks of 
the politicians, the workers ask from their combatants to be 
pure of any reproach, to live in accordance with the grand 
principles they are preaching. 


They were honest all their lives through, these martyrs of 
the labor cause, and once they had joined the Anarchist 
movement, they gave themselves to it, not by halves, but 
entirely, body and heart together. 


And—they had no ambition. They were Anarchists and 
understood when they became Socialists, that it was not that 
they might climb themselves upon the shoulders of their 
fellow-workers. They did not ask from the masses a place 
in Parliament, ina Municipality, or ina School Board. They 
sought no power over the others, no place in the ranks of 
the ruling classes. They asked nothing but the right to fight 
in the ranks, at the post of danger. And there they died. 


. .. Such men can inspire the generations to come with the 
noblest feelings. And so they do, and will do. The idea 


which lives in such men will never die—it will conquer. 


KROPOTKIN’S WORDS ON THE “ELEVENTH OF 
NOVEMBER” 


Addressed to the workers in general, November 10, 1898; ‘‘Freedom’’, Dec. 1898. 


... The failure of the middle classes is now complete, and 
you, the workers, must take into your hands the inheritance. 
Consider all that vast accumulation of cultivable lands, these 
railways, these ships, this accumulated knowledge as YOUTS, 
take hold of them: you are called upon by history to do so 


—to undertake the management of all treasures for the 


benefit of all. 


[ Page 166 ] 





FRAGMENTS FROM THE UNCOLLECTED WORKS 


Trust to Reason, trust to Liberty, and don’t trust to those 
who even now, before you have got Liberty, scheme out the 
measures to be taken to limit your liberty, the day you have 
got it. 

Trust above all to moral courage. Have the courage of your 


thoughts and acts in your everyday life. Despise those who 
have it not. 


And if, at times, you find the struggle too hard for you, and 
feel your forces weakening — think of those who have re- 
trieved their moral force and courage under conditions still 
worse than yours! 


Recall the courage of your brothers who died at Chicago on 
the Eleventh of November, 1887. 


WILLIAM MORRIS 


(Died October 3, 1896); “Freedom”, November, 1896. 


. .» No modern poet has been known to inspire men witha 
like love of liberty, and to labor with the like vigor, like hope 
and trust in human nature, like confidence in the happiness 
that men can find in conquering full freedom and freely 
associating with their equals. A true poet of the Norse 
Vikings, of the free laborers, of free men. 

These same elements he brought into the Socialist move- 
ment, 


When he joined it, he, like all really powerful men, did not 
seek in it the position ofa wire-puller or a leader. Not even 
that of a teacher. He simply undertook to express what the 
masses think and what they vaguely aspire to. He joined 
the ranks, and brought with him his hatred of oppression in 
all possible forms, and his love of equality and freedom— 


which he understood in its broadest sense. 
[ Page 167 ] 


FRAGMENTS FROM THE UNCOLLECTED WORKS 


That is why, when he undertook to write his own romance 
of the fature—“News from Nowhere” — he produced per- 
haps the most thoroughly and deeply Ananda concep- 
tion of fature society that has ever been written. As he com- 
bined in himself the broad view of the thinker with a won- 
derful personification of the good practical sense of collective 
thought (the mood of thought of the masses when they oc- 
casionally, in revolutionary times, are set free to work)—his 
ideal society is undoubtedly the one which is most free of 
all our State and monastic traditions; the most imbued with 
the feelings of equality and humanitarian love; the most 
spontaneously growing out of a spirit of free understanding. 


Two tendencies struggle in present society. On the one side, 
the tradition of the centralized State of Imperial Rome and 
of the Church; built up by the same plan—the tradition of 
slavery, submission, oppression, military and canonic dis- 
cipline; and, on the other side, the tradition of the masses who 
endeavored to build up their society outside the State— the 
tradition of the customary law, as opposed to Roman law; 
of the free guilds and fraternities; of the free cities revolted 
against the bishop and the king; of the artisans and peasants 
revolted against Church and Empire. Morris, entirely and 
unreservedly belonged to this second tradition. He was the 
bearer of that Scandinavian, Celtic, Teutonic, Slavonic spirit 
which for the last ten years [sic; 9 centuries?] has struggled 
against the Roman tradition. And this is why he was so 
little understood by all the unconscious followers of the 
Church-and-State tradition. 


Moreover, Morris, who would have gone any way with the 
masses could not go with parties; and when the Socialist move- 
ment in England became a party warfare, with all its wire- 


pulling and petty ambitions, which he hated so deeply, he 


[ Page 168 ] 





FRAGMENTS FROM THE UNCOLLECTED WORKS 


did as Garibaldi did after he fell wounded in the fight between 
his Italian volunteers and the Italian royal troops. He re- 
tired to his Caprera. 


ELISEE RECLUS 


“Freedom’’, August, 1905. from “Les Temps Nouveaux” » July, 1905. 


- -- Anarchism has already produced a group of characters 
of marvelous beauty. Elisée was one of the most striking, 
one of the most expressive. One sees men, very revolution- 
ary in their thoughts, but one cannot help asking ones self: 
How will they accomodate themselves one day to the begin- 
nings of the Social Revolution, when they will have to give 
up many habits ofa leisured life. .. . How will they attune 
themselves to the principles of equality, without which no 
Social Revolution is possible ? Where will they find in their 
tyrannical souls that tolerance for conceptions of other people 
side by side with a passionate love for their own principles? 
Will they possess that equalitarian trend of thought which 
is, in fact, the essence of Anarchism?... Not the slightest 
of such doubts was possible in regard to Elisée Reclus. He 
was an Anarchist to the uttermost depths of his mind— to 
the smallest fibre of his being. Dry bread would have suf- 
ficed him to go through a revolutionary crisis, and to work 
at building up a future full of wealth for all. He managed 
to remain poor, absolutely poor, in spite of the success of 
his heautifil books. The idea of dominating anyone at all 
seems never to have crossed his mind; he hated down to 
the smallest signs of'a dominating spirit. For him, who knew 
so well all the peoples scattered over the globe, and showing 
us now the stages once passed through by mankind; for the 
man of science who could at a single glance retrace in his 
[ Page 169 ] 


FRAGMENTS FROM THE UNCOLLECTED WORKS 


mind the long martyrdom of man—for him Anarchism was 
not a poor lover’s dream. It was the conclusion, the key- 
stone of human history, a science; the aim, indicated with 
as much necessity as is the path along which our solar 
system is today directed in the infinite space. And Nature 
—that beautiful Nature which he loved as Goethe and 
Shelley loved her— was for his mind a physical ee iis 
so he never let himself be turned away Pe his path by 
any of the superstitions which are inspired by the fear of 
an imaginary other world. 


And then the ideal, for him, meant application today. The 
hypocrisy of the despot and the ambitious man, which makes 
them say: “This is good for tomorrow, and in the mean- 
time I shall continue to rule’—this hypocrisy he never knew. 
Since Nature, the study of Nature, of history, of man under 
all latitudes and at all times, had brought him to see in 
Man—both in the community and in the individual — a 
product of his surroundings; since he had conceived Anar- 
chism in its sense of progressive force acting through the 
ages, it was for him no more a vain word, or a far off desi- 
deratum. He saw, even today, a better way for man to live 
without seeking to govern one another. He practised even 
from now this mode of life, and had he found himself once 
again in a revolted Commune [sc. as 1871, in Paris], his 
motto would have been: “Anarchism, — straight-forward, 
consequent, audacious, and therefore triumphant!” 


we 


[ Page 170 ] 





“The years roll on, and with the lapse of time life grows better, provided it 
comes to be what it already is for some and what it one day will be for all.” 
N. G. TCHERNICHEWSKY 


a 


“By oppression’s woes and pains! 
By your sons in servile chains ! 
We will drain our dearest veins, 


But they shall—they shall be free! 


Lay the proud usurpers low | 
Tyrants fall in every foe ! 
Liberty’s in every blow! 
Forward! let us do, or die”! 
ROBERT BURNS 

















x 


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Mee eee 92. 6 AGS 
g Re eel eercc/ le, roel 

F - LAL , / 

<\ se, Goer - Sees Ao ke 

; [K oe, JOE ce e*n 

\ ee KG Ke La 
a ee So ft Aa Cree ee 
ee Ze na Duy 

Mee nc 








FACSIMILE LETTER FROM KROPOTKIN TO JEAN GRAVE 





. 
* 
* 








FROM KROPOTKIN’S MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 


To GEORG BRANDES 


This letter has been published in several journals during the course of 1919. 


My very dear friend, 


At last I have the opportunity of writing you and I make 
haste to profit thereby without being sure, however, that this 
letter will reach you. 


Both of us thanked you heartily for the fraternal interest you 
have taken in your old friend when there was a rumor of 
my arrest. This rumor was absolutely false as were also the 
tales concerning the state of my health. 


The person who will deliver this letter to you will tell you 
of the isolated life we lead in our little provincial village. At 
my age it is practically impossible to participate in public af- 
fairs during a revolution and it is not in my nature to occupy 
myself with them like an amateur. The last winter we spent 
at Moscow, I worked with a group of collaborators in order 
to elaborate the elements of a federalist republic. But the 
group had to disperse and I have once more started on a 


book on Ethics which I began fifteen years ago in England. 


All I can do now is to give a general idea of the situation 
in Russia... . 


At this moment we are experiencing what France lived 
through during the Jacobin revolution from September 1792 
to July 1794, with the addition that now it is a Social Re- 
volution which is in progress. 


The dictatorial method of the Jacobins was false: It could 
not create a stable organization and it necessarily bordered 
on reaction. But, nevertheless, the Jacobins accomplished 
in June 1793, the abolition of feudal rights which was begun 
in 1789 and which neither the Constituent nor the Legis- 
[ Page 173 ] 


FROM KROPOTKIN’S MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 


lative wanted to conclude. And they resolutely proclaimed 
the political equality of all citizens. Two immense, fundamen- 
tal changes which, during the course of the nineteenth cen- 
tury spread throughout Europe. 


An analogous fact is brought about in Russia. The Bolsheviks 
are striving to introduce, through the dictatorship of a frac- 
lion of the Social-Democratic party, the socialization of the 
land, industry and commerce. This change which they are 
trying to accomplish is the fundamental principle of social- 
ism. Unfortunately the method by which they seek to im- 
pose a communism recalling that of Babeuf in a state 
strongly centralized—and in paralyzing the constructive work 
of the people—makes success absolutely impossible. Which 
is preparing for us a furious and evil reaction. The latter 
already seeks to organize itself in order to bring back the 
ancient regime while profiting by the general exhaustion 
produced first by the war and then by the famine we are 
undergoing in Central Russia and by the com lete disor- 
ganization of exchange and production, inevitable during a 
revolution as vast which was accomplished by degrees. 


They speak, in the West, of re-establishing “order” in Russia 
by the armed intervention of the Allies. Well, dear friend, 
you know how criminal toward all social progress of 
Europe, in my opinion, was the attitude of those who wrought 
to disorganize the power of resistance of Russia — which 
prolonged the war by a year, brought us the German in- 
vasion, under cover of a treaty, and cost oceans of blood 
to prevent conquering Germany from crushing Europe under 
the imperial heel. You know my sentiments in that respect. 


Nevertheless, I protest with all my strength against any kind 
of intervention of the Allies in Russian affairs. Such inter- 
vention would result in an access of Russian chauvinism. 


[ Page 174 ] 





A RTI MO ar 


FROM KROPOTKIN’S MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 


It would once more bring about the chauvinistic monarchy 
—-signs of it are already apparent—and, mark this well, it 
would produce among the entire people of Russia a hostile 
attitude toward Occidental Europe—an attitude which would 
have the saddest results. The Americans have already com- 


prehended this well. 


They perhaps imagine that by supporting Admiral Kolchak 
and General Denikine that they are supporting a liberal re- 
publican party. But that is already an error. Whatever be 
the personal intentions of the two military chiefs, the great 
number of their partisans have other designs. Of necessity, 
what they would bring us would be a return of the monar- 
chy, reaction and seas of blood. 


Those of the Allies who already clearly see events, should be 
bound, then, to repudiate all armed intervention. So much 
the more that if they really desire to come to Russia’s aid 
they will find a great deal to do in another direction. 


Throughout the immense vastitudes of the central and north- 


ern provinces we are lacking bread. 


In order to procure a pound of black rye bread in Moscow, 
or here at Dimitroff, ... delivered by the State at the very 
high but relatively modest price of one rouble and sixty 
kopecks per pound, (formerly this was four francs) — it is 
necessary to pay 25 to 30 roubles (62 to 75 francs) a pound 
of 450 grams. And still it is not to be obtained! There you 
have famine with all its consequences: A whole generation 
is fading away.... And they refuse us the right to buy bread 
in the West! — Why? Can it be in order to bring usa 


Romanoft again ? 


Everywhere in Russia we are lacking manufactured articles. 
The peasant pays giddy prices for a scythe, an axe, a few 


{ Page 175 ] 


FROM KROPOTKIN’S MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 


nails, a needle, a yard of any material whatsoever—a 1000 
roubles (formely 2500 francs) for four wheels attached to a 
rickety Russian cart. It is still worse in the Ukraine: No mer- 
chandise is to be found at any price. 


Instead of playing the role Austria, Prussia, and Russia 
played in 1793 toward France, the Allies ought to do Soe 
thing to help the Russian people emerge from this terrible 
situation. Moreover, they would shed oceans of blood to 
have the Russian people return to the past—— they will not 
succeed. 


It is to work out a new future by the constructive elabora- 
tion ofa new life that is already unfolding despite all odds, 
that the Allies ought to help us. Come without delay to the 
aid of our children! Come to help us in necessary construc- 
tive work! And for that, let them send us, not diplomats 
and generals, but bread, implements for its production, and 
those organizers who knew so well how to help the Allies 
during these five terrible years to prevent economic dis- 
organization and to repulse the barbaric invasion of the 
Germans... . 


I am reminded that I ought to terminate this already too long 
letter. I do so by embracing you fraternally. 


Peter Kropotkin 


[ Page 176 ] 








tt 1 ge — Mor Sa “ee 
ann ey vas aes f E<, eo 
ee LA Cm C7 ea 











FACSIMILE LETTER FROM KROPOTKIN TO JEAN GRAVE 








FROM KROPOTKIN’S MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 


To ALEXANDER ATABEKIAN 


Dessihore, May 5, 1920. 


My dear Alexander, 


Absorbed in my work, up to now Ihave not answered your 
letter of April 22... . 


I have undertaken to write on Ethics because I regard that 
work as absolutely necessary. I know well that these are not 
the books to create a stir of opinion, but the contrary. But 
I also know that for the elaboration of a stir of ideas, it is 
necessary to have the sole support of books expressing 
fundamental thoughts under a form amply elaborated. And 
in order to lay the foundation of a morality free from religion 
and more elevated than the religious morality which expects 
rewards in the other world, the aid of books well-thought- 
out is indispensable. 


In such an elaboration, now that people struggle between 
Nietzsche and Kant (in reality the ethics of Kant were religious 
although under the mask of “philosophy”) that is to say, 
between Nietzsche and Christianity, one feels that the need 
for such books is very urgent. 


It is to be noticed, (I have learned it recently) that Bakunin, 
when after the fall of the Commune, he took refuge at 
Locarno, also felt the necessity for the working out of a 
new ethic. Some one certainly will accomplish this task. 
But the soil must be prepared and since my spirit is attract- 
ed that way — seeking new paths — it has got to be done 
though it be only tracing the road. 


There remains for me only a little while in which to live. 
My heart has beaten about as long as it was capable of 
doing. To-day I almost fainted without any Henicalar cause; 
“my heart is playing tricks on me”. 

[ Page 177 ] 


FROM KROPOTKIN’S MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 


Thus, dear friend, I am consecrating all my strength to 
‘ethics, so much the more so, that in our activity as agitators, 
during the time we lived together for so long, I felt with but 
feeble individual strength that anything serious could be 
done in Russia: The forces at grips are great, but in all cases 
they are not unities. | 


That which is happening now has been in preparation for 
thirty years and against this there were nothing but our 
excessively modest forces that were able to work and still 
were not wise enough to unite. And those forces did not appraise 
at their true value the power of social-democratic centraliza- 
tion, nor would they believe in the approach of a possible 
overturn. 


I believe profoundly in the future. I believe that the syndic- 
alist movement, that is to say, the movement of trade-uni- 
ons to its congress where the representatives of 20 million 
workers recently attended, will become a great power in the 
course of the next 50 years, a great power for the purpose 
of laying the foundation of a Communist anti-statist Society. 
If I were in France, where at this moment is to be found 
the centre of the professional movement, and if I were in 
better health, I would be the first to rush headlong into this 
movement in favor of the First International not the second 
or the third which only represent the usurpation of the idea 
of the workers’ International for the profit of a party of which 


the half is not composed of workers. 


I also believe that for the organization of a socialist society, 
or better still, a communist society, among the peasants, the 
co-operative movement, that is to say the co-operative Rus- 
sian-peasant movement will present in the next half-century 
a nucleus of communist life without any alloy of religious 
element (absolutely superfluous, for a simple reason suffices 


{ Page 178 ] 








FROM KROPOTKIN’S MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 


for the beginning of the communist employment of the cre- 
ative force of the earth). And the impulsion in that direc- 
tion will come perhaps from Russia and in part from the 
United States. 


I am convinced of this. But I feel that in order to breathe 
living force into these two movements, in order to mould 
them, to elaborate them, to help them transform themselves 
from instruments of self-defence into a powerful instrument 
of the communist transformation of society, forces younger 
than mine are necessary and particularly collaboration amon 
workers and peasants. Such forces will be found. They al- 
ready exist here and there, although they do not reckon 
with the future which awaits them. They have not grown 
up to it; they are not imbued with the socialist ideal. 


I believe, in fine, that the people who have separated them- 
selves into little States, will begin to organize forms of life 
without the State: Firstly because of the escape from military 
conquest; secondly, because it will be easier to pass to so- 
cialist organization in anti-Statist forms, that is to say, in 
independent communes forming federative unions, when 
men will get rid of their present ideal of Statist centralization 
and the “Strong Power”. 


I embrace you heartily, my dear Alexander. I have just re-read 
this letter. Needless to say, it is not intended for the press. 
My thoughts here are hardly sketched. But friendly letters 
are good in that one friend grasps the meaning of the other 
at once. : 


Peter Kropotkin 


| Page 179 ] 


FROM KROPOTKIN’S MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 


To LUIGI BERTONI 


Brighton, February 21, 1912. 


Once more I must beg to be excused for not having written 
you sooner. Always a thousand little things. 


. .. | know not how much to thank you for your suggestion. 
It is just what I felt was lacking. You have perhaps _no- 
ticed that of late I have begun divers things in “Les Temps 
Nouveaux” without finishing any of them. I have not had a 
general plan and I am seeking one. Nettlau has proposed 
some to me and even elaborated one admirably: “The 
struggle of Humanity for Liberty”. But I am uncertain. It 
did not suit my purpose. And when I lately revised my 
Studies on the Revolution commenced in 1896 [?] (they were 
coldly received at the time—a critical period — but Nettlau 
finds them very good), I thought of something similar. 


Now your plan is just what I would like to write on. I am 
going to start on it. There is only one difficulty. I have en- 
gaged myself in that anti-Weismannian polemic and I must 
finish it. It is part of my Ethics. I am thinking, however, of 
putting the two together. 


The plan you made is very logical and broad. Really, one 
could make a superb book of the above. I will try and do 
what is possible. As for what you propose in order to help 
me do so, do not concern yourself” with it at present. 


Things are getting along well just now. I am entirely fit for 
the occasion. But moral support will be greatly welcome to 
me! Particularly fraternal criticism. 


[ Page 180 ] 





FROM KROPOTKIN'’S MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 


Bordighera, March 2, 1914. 


Thanks very much for your letter and the copy of “La 
Grande Revoluzione”. You may well imagine how much 
the polemic raised against you by Guillaume, saddens me. 


My opinion is absolutely that which Malatesta has expressed 
in “La Volonta” of Feb. 7, 1914, and at which you jest. 


The syndicate is absolutely necessary. It is the only form 
of workingmen’ 8 groups that permits of maintaining the direct 
struggle against Capital, without falling into Parliamentarism. 
But evidently it does not take that trend mechanically since 
we have in Germany, France and England syndicates rally- 
ing to Parliamentarism and in Germany orthodox syndicalists 
who are very powerful, etc. The other element is necessary, 
the element of which Malatesta speaks and which Ba- 
kunin has always practiced. 


Only, my friend, for very important reasons, it would be 
better worth while to put the quickest possible termination 
to that polemic. It threatens to extend itself, to divide those, 
who at present work together, to produce interior dis- 
cord, as you have seen in the last number of “Les Temps 
Nouveaux”. 


In any case, my friend, remain firm upon the precise pro- 
vince of principles. It is necessary that the “Reveil” and the 
“Temps Nouveaux” should give the example of true, salut- 
ary discussion without personal attacks. Your arguments, 
—or rather the questions you put to yourself as well as to 
your comrades, — as they are exposed by Pierrot, — are 
perfectly founded. Every one must put them 
to himself. I am going to write immediately to Guillaume 
about this. 


In polemics he has his defeats, but, after all, he seeks, 
{ Page 181 ] 


FROM KROPOTKIN’S MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 


as we all do, the revolutionary solution of this difficult ques- 
tion and he has kept throughout his nature these qualities 
which made us love him so much in the Jurasienne. It is 
this nature that I have shown up in the note I have written 
in the “Vie ouvriere” for his 70th birthday. 


In a preceding letter he wrote me (I have not yet written to him 
on the above question: it is on Brupbacher’s article “Social- 
Democrat and Anarchist” that I wrote him) that the criticism 
of the syndicates seemed to him especially ill-placed because 
in France he asks himself every morning if there will not be 
some coup d’etat before the day is over, or if war is 
not going to break out from one day to another. 


As for the last contingency we have still two months of 
respite, and from the present to that time things may ease 
up or grow worse. As to the possibility ofa coup detat, 
I would never believe it probable. However, if Guillaume 
speaks of it, such must be the opinion of the Frenchmen 
with whom he treats. But aside from that there are inte- 
rior dangers. 


This letter has dragged along for several days. We have 
with us Mme. Sophie Lavroff, of whom I have often spoken 
to you; 72 years of age, she has come from St. Petersburg 
(3 days and 3 nights in a railway carriage) to see us. Then 
Jean Grave with his companion, an Englishman, Dr. Clark, 
and visits,—and letters without end — among others, one 
concerning the absurd illustrations of the Spanish edition 
of the “Grande Révolution” (rods of lictors and all the rid- 
iculous crowd, drawn in the “Histoire dela Revolution” of 
Louis Blanc, edition illustrated by Larousse). How grateful 
I am to you for the beautiful Italian edition! Our Russian 
edition progresses, 496 pages printed! ... 


I embrace you with all my heart. ; Peter 


[ Page 182 ] 





FROM KROPOTKIN’S MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 


Brighton, Nov. 30, 1914. 
My dear Louis, 
Hearty thanks for your good letter —I have been deeply 
moved by it. 


You are right. Nothing can be more painful to me than to 
find myself in discord with you three. However, I am certain 
that if you knew the worst of war as I knew itand had lived 
through as Sophie and I had lived through what happens in 
Belgium and France, and knew the true facts of the atrocious 
invasion as we knew it through Belgium refugees and peasant 
families,— you would have said to yourself, as I say: If 
the German workers are the “Pinkerton men” of German 
Capitalists, it is our duty to combat them by all the means 
which age, health, personal inclinations dictate to us, in- 
stead of permitting doubt to hover over our attitude toward 
the invasion. If the French or English had invaded and con- 
quered Belgium, it would have been our duty to oppose it, 
just as we now oppose the Germans. 


The Pinkertons are thus for the most part workers, the Rus- 
sian and English soldiers are thus mostly workers and 
peasants. 


But when the English soldiers go to conquer the Boers, the 
Russian soldiers masacre the Poles, the “Pinkerton men” 
massacre the Irish workers, Slavs, etc.— I rebel against 
them. I combat them in the measure of my strength. I have 
done this all my life: I continue doing so to-day. Without 
this, there will never be an International. It is thus that we 
understood the International in 1872, and I think to-day as 
I thought in 1872, and said from 1877 that it is the only 
just idea. 
Then, my friend, it is useless to say that one never knows 
who the aggressor is. Popular sentiment has never de- 
ceived itself about that. It is not mistaken now... . 
Hearty embraces to you three. 


[ Page 183 ] 


FROM KROPOTKIN’S MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 


To JEAN GRAVE 


“Les Temps Nouveaux”, Dec. 25, 1903. 


Your letter has reached me this morning. I am going to write 
the article on Herbert Spencer, but I fear you will not get 
it in time. It will be in time for the next number. 


I am, as you see, in Brighton recuperating from influenza. It 
is on the 9th that the great philosopher aged 83 years and 
more died here in the house at the sea-shore which he oc- 
cupied for some years in the Eastern part of the town (Kemp 
Town). To-da ‘fs was buried; that is to say, early in the 
morning, his body was carried to the new Crematory at 
London in order to be cremated, after which his ashes will 
be interred in the the cemetary at Highgate. 


Evidently—no religious ceremony. Believers ... had indeed 
tried to seize the body of Spencer in order to carry it to the 
Abbey, the national Pantheon. That is what they have suc- 
ceeded in doing with Darwin. 


As far as that is concerned—it is not generally known—they 
had even published, in a garbled way, in “Nature” the irreligi- 
ous letter that Darwin had written in response to a German 
student and in which he stated that he certainly did not 
believe in the Hebraic traditions which they call ‘vevelation”. 
This compromising passage was omitted in the letter. 


Forutnately the friends of Spencer—he had no relatives near- 
er than first cousins—knew how to prevent a similar thing 
from being done to the great philosopher in order that the 
gates of the English Pantheon be opened to him. They have 
strictly conformed to the will Spencer himself had expressed: 
The body should be burned; no flowers, no mourning. 


Thus you may imagine the silence with which the “great 
press” and the “elite” have greeted that death. 


{ Page 184 } 





FROM KROPOTKIN’S MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 


They ignore him. Arrived here, I see the flags floating at 
half-mast on the towers of the pier and over the stations of 
the Coast-guards. 


The next morning the omnibuses were coveredwith black 
crepe. “They think of Spencer, nevertheless,” I said to my- 
self. “He was known at Brighton.” The next morning it had 
disappeared and I learned that they had put on all this 
mourning because on that day the Municipal Counsellor 
was buried. As for the philosopher who has lived at Brighton 
for ten years, nobody thought of him. On the afternoon of 
the 9th, nobody knew whether he was still alive or dead, 
and only upon inquiring at his door did I learn that he 
died at 4.45 A.M. England ignores him. They knew him 


infinitely better in France, Russia and Spain. 


I am forced to cut this letter short in order to send it by 
this post. The rest will follow to-morrow. 


Yours, 


Peter Kropotkin 


[ Page 185 | 


FROM KROPOTKIN’S MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 


To FRANCOIS DUMARTHERAY 


Brighton; May 21, 1917. 


My dearest friend, 


I cannot tell you how happy I was to see your lines and 
read your message! Yes, dear old friend, something great 
has happened in Russia and something which will be the 


beginning of still greater events almost everywhere. 


This revolution was unquestionably impending for eighteen 
months. But what struck me very much is the profound 
good sense of the masses of workers and peasants in com- 
prehending the import of the movement and its promise. 


It is because they have been prepared since 1861 when 
—under the influence of the Russian refugees in London 
and the remains of the Fourier circle in Russia (that of 
Tchernichevsky)—propaganda was begun from the midst of 
the people. From that time on, circles of propaganda in the 
fields and manufactories have succeeded each other from 
year to year. Then came 1881, after that the first tentative 
of 1905 and finally this great movement which was in pre- 
paration since the war began. 


You understand that we are leaving for Russia. You, George, 
and the Jurasians well know that I am not going there to 
occupy any government position whatever. But a life well 
spent, experience and also some study sometimes permit us 
better to comprehend events, and Sophie, Tcherkessoff and 
myself think that I may be useful. 


I see here in France and Russia immense possibilities for 
helping do constructive work in the direction of communal 
communism. 


f{ Page 186 ] 














hie aa 


FROM KROPOTKIN’S MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 


The calamity of war urges society that way and they them- 
selves who three years ago would have fought like madmen 
against any communist tentative only demand: Do! Fight! 
socialize exchange and production! It seems that in Rus- 
sia during these three years of war much _ has been done 
along that line, not through government as in England, but 
through the free understanding of all kinds of spontaneous 
organizations. What they have reproached us with asa fantas- 
tic Utopia has been accomplished on a large scale in Russia, 
in what concerns, at least, the spirit of free organization out- 
side of the State and municipality. It is that which in Mos- 
cow permits the revolution to be accomplished without a 
single casualty. The free organizations which sprung up 
during the war to care for the wounded, for supplies, for the 
distribution of provisions, the unloading of trains and so 
many other ends, have replaced on March 2, the whole 
ancient litter of functionaries, police, etcetera. They have 
opened the prison-gates, declared the ancient government 
non-existant, and what is best, have one after another dis- 


armed and expelled all the police, high and low. 


Now, how they will set about in the provinces for the land 
and in the towns for the factories, is not known; it remains 
to be seen. But for that, all forces are necessary to the work, 
so as to prevent those confounded Germans from profit- 
ing thereby in order to re-establish the monarchy and the 
triple alliance of the three emperors. 


That will be an immense task.... It is necessar y to put 


the shoulder to the wheel. We are going there with all the 
fervor of youth. 


We are both well. Sophie, in spite of her sixty years, bears 
the fatigue very well—incredibly so—of those three weeks 
of | sorting all kinds of papers, and old things accumulated 
{ Page 187 ] 


FROM KROPOTKIN’S MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 


during thirty years of sojourn in England, since Clairvaux. 
You can well imagine what a task it was! Finally we near 


the end. 


You know that after the operation (the two in fact) I have 
dragged out a whole year without being able to go outside 
except in a little wheel-chair. But now it is better; except that 
the lungs are badly attacked and menace pneumonia. That 
is why two doctors have absolutely forbidden me to under- 
take the semi-arctic voyage that is necessary in order to en- 
ter Russia before the cold sets in. Now the departure will 
depend on the boats. It will probably be toward the end of 


the second week in June. 


It is with sadness, my very dear friends, that I leave you. 
When I think of the time during which we lived together, 
I long to see you all, to speak to you, to embrace you ten- 
derly. It is necessary to do so by letter. Greet your wife and 
the wife of George for us. I embrace you with all my heart. 


Yours, 
Peter 


[ Page 188 ] 





FROM KROPOTKIN’S MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 


To THE “FREIHEIT” GROUP, London. 


Dear Comrades, 


I am very happy to think that you are preparing to publish 
my “Memoirs” in the Jewish language and in a cheap edi- 
tion so that they may be able to reach agreat many readers. 
It is still greater happiness for me to know that you are 
placing my “Memoirs” among your fine publications with 
the aim of spreading them among the Jewish workers of 


Europe and of the United States. 


The Jewish workers took a prominent part in the great 
movement which began in Russia during these last years. 
In a very short period there issued from their ranks a regi- 
ment Be devoted, energetic and resolute fighters — fighters, 
thanks to their self-sacrifice and devotion, have in all times 
advanced the cause of the liberation of mankind. And not 
only have the young heroes stepped forth bravely, unafraid 
of death and annihilation in the lonely prison-cells, in the 
snows of frozen Siberia, or in the deserts of fearful Sakhalin 
but also a great number of Jewish workingmen in the large 
and small towns have not feared to rise bravely and vigor- 
ously against the hundred years’ oppression, declaring 
frankly and freely before the entire world their demands and 
hopes for the final liberation of the hundred-year-old slavery. 
I heartily wish that this book may help the Jewish youth 
to read the divers problems of the present movement against 
the all-destroying power of existant capitalism and authority. 
I will consider myself fortunate if one of the downtrodden 
of Capitalism and Authority wafted to one of the distant 
nooks of Russia, will find upon reading those lines that he 
does not stand quite alone on the battlefield. May he know 
that, on going into battle for the liberation of those who cre- 
ate all wealth and receive as reward nothing but poverty, 
{ Page 189 ] 







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oe 
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i s Ps 
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— 


FROM KROPOTKIN’S MISCELLANEOUS LETT ae 


iis te ki 
5 ‘ 


he becomes, by this alone a participant of the great cause— 
_ of the great struggle which is conducted everywhere for th 
freedom and happiness of all mankind; that he enters into 
the family of the workers of the entire world whoare united _ 
: one great confraternity demanding freedom and equality _ 
or all. 2 ie 


Yours, 





P.. 
ty 


ary i eres we 
—" 


I 
ne ~4 


March, 1904. ; Peter Kropotkin — 


ws 


a 





FROM KROPOTKIN’S MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 


To THE “TOLSTOYAN” GROUP, Moscow. 


[During the criminal and shameful blockade of most of the nations against Revolution- 
ary Russia, where Peter Kropotkin was living, this letter which was written two months 
before his death to the Tolstoyan Group, was sent to us by Jacques Mesnil together 
with the article of Boulgakoff, wich is included in this book.] 


Dear Friends, 


I profoundly regret being unable to participate at the soirée 
in memory of Leo Nicolaevitch. I would have so ardently 
desired to spend two or three days with you all, evoking 
the memory of him, who has taught men love and frater- 
nity, who has awakened the conscience within them, and 
whose powerful voice has called upon them to construct a 
new society on fraternal foundations and without masters— 
of him whose words would be so necessary precisely at this 
time. 


Unfortunately, my bad health forces me to decline your kind 
invitation. But my thoughts join you with all my soul—and 
all these to whom the name of Leo Nicolaevitch is dear. 


P. Kropotkin 


Dimitroff, November 20, 1920. 


[ Page 191 ] 


THIS BOOK IS THE EFFORT OF A PROLETARIAN AND IS EXCLUSIVELY 
PUBLISHED FOR KROPOTKIN’S FRIENDS. THE SETTING AND PRINTING 
WERE DONE BY HAND AT THE FREE SPIRIT PRESS, BERKELEY HEIGHTS, 
NEW JERSEY. ONLY SEVENTY-FIVE COPIES WERE PRODUCED IN THE 
SUMMER OF NINETEEN-TWENTY-THREE. 


COPY NO. 


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OXF 














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Hae Sato 


SOE ante BR 




















